MADRID, 5 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Real Madrid made it to their seventeenth European Cup final on Wednesday, the eighth under the Champions League format, and will be able to aspire in Paris to score an unusual double in their history against Liverpool.
The madridista team has a total of 35 league titles and 13 ‘Orejonas’ under its belt, but it so happens that it was only able to dominate the domestic championship and the top continental competition on three occasions. In fact, despite this great flow of titles, never in its history has it been able to sign a treble that other clubs such as FC Barcelona, Bayern, Manchester United, Ajax, PSV and Celtic have.
Nor was he able to consistently win the two most important trophies in his splendid first era of the 1950s with Alfredo Di Stéfano, Paco Gento, Ferenc Puskas or Raymond Kopa when he won the first five editions of the European Cup between 1955 and 1960. Then, he chained two consecutive doubles in 1957 and 1958.
Subsequently, the brilliance in Europe faded and in the 20th century they would only be able to win two more ‘Orejonas’, in 1966 and 1998, finishing runner-up, one point behind Atlético de Madrid, and fourth respectively in the domestic tournament.
Real Madrid regained its prominence on the Old Continent and played, and won, two other Champions League finals in 2000 and 2002, but it was not able to shine in the League either, with a fifth and third place in those years and far from the champions Deportivo de La Coruña and Valencia. He did reign in the odd years (2001 and 2003), where Bayern and Juventus left him without the final of the highest continental competition.
Then, the club went through another time of drought where titles eluded them. He managed to chain two Leagues in 2007 and 2008, settled by two new European eliminations in the round of 16 (Bayern and Rome), although he was closer in the 2011-2012 season when he returned to reign in Spain, but the penalties against Bayern deprived him of the European final.
The achievement of the ‘Décima’ in Lisbon in 2014 was accompanied by a third place in a League that fought until the end, in a season in which it did double because it won the Copa del Rey, while in 2016 it added its eleventh Cup of Europe and was one point behind Barça in a marked domestic tournament because it was almost able to lift twelve points from the Blaugrana in the last three months.
On the other hand, in the following season, Real Madrid ended that long wait and won what is so far their last Europa Cup-League double because in 2018, the year of the ‘Decimotercera’, they finished third, 17 points behind FC Barcelona, and in 2020, in the ‘Pandemic League’, fell in the Champions League round of 16 against Manchester City.