The beginning of Real Madrid in the 21st century

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Some historians say that the 20th century began with World War I and ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A century of only 75 years. Others extend it to the attack on the Twin Towers, the first great event that shook the 21st century. In football there have also been milestones that have marked the history of this sport. The creations of the national leagues, the World Cup and the Eurocup; the birth of the European Cup and its subsequent transformation into the Champions League, the Bosman ruling … Who knows what historical stage the recent declaration of intentions of the 12 founding clubs of the Superliga will open …

Each club has its milestones that shape its history. At the dawn of the European Cup, Real Madrid wrote the first pages of its legend. Until the creation in 1955 of the first club competition with a pan-European vocation, the white team had won four of the 24 leagues held in Spain until then. However, in his parade through the continent, he conquered the first five editions of the European Cup (1955-1960) and another in 1966. For these and many other achievements, FIFA named it the Best Club of the 20th Century. But the century did not end for Madrid in 2000, in full greening of those laurels with a cycle of three Champions in five seasons between 1998 and 2002. Madrid's particular Berlin Wall fell on March 17, 2004. The defeat in the Cup final against Zaragoza was the prologue to the collapse of the galactic Madrid. It would take three years for the Bernabéu trophy room to receive its next title, the Burning Nail League. An alirón in a transition period of six seasons in which Madrid conquered another League and a Spanish Super Cup and was not able to overcome the eighth of the Champions League.

On April 20, 2011, a new golden age began for Madrid. The 21st century of Madrid's history. That night, at the Mestalla, with the European quarter-final barrier surpassed, came the revenge of a Cup that had resisted Madrid for 18 years. The milestone: a header from Cristiano Ronaldo with which, in addition, he questioned the hegemony of a Barça that only Inter de Mourinho, then already a Madrid coach, had been able to short-circuit.

The Copa del Rey is a title in the background in Real Madrid's record. Since the creation of the European Cup, the Concha Espina club has won the continental tournament more times (13 wound), than the KO (10). His previous triumph dated from 1993, against Zaragoza (2-0 in Valencia). His subsequent passage through the Cup was marked by a disappointment: the final of the Centenariazo that Dépor snatched from him at the Bernabéu on the same day, March 6, 2002, that the club was celebrating one hundred years. The Cup also escaped two years later, 2004, in that final in Montjuïc against Zaragoza (3-2).

The expansion of the list of participants in the Champions League since the end of the 90s increased the importance of being among the first in the League to the detriment of the national cups. Neither Madrid nor Barça (nor Atlético) registered his name in the list of winners for a decade, between 1999 and 2008. The whites in that period played and lost the two mentioned finals; the Catalans, none …

But the winning cycle of Pep Guardiola's Barça revalued the Cup. that Mestalla final came in the middle of a Clásicos storm. It was the second of four in 18 days. In the first, the eternal rivals drew (1-1) at the Bernabéu in a league match. Then the culés would lower the whites in the semi-finals of the Champions League (0-2 in Chamartín, with a strong controversy and a 1-1 at the Camp Nou also with a lot of controversy).

Intense final in Mestalla. Each foul (there were 50: 24 from Barça and 26 from Madrid in the 120 minutes) swirls the players around Undiano Mallenco, the Navarrese referee who whistles the match. With alternatives. Madrid dominates the first half; the Barça, the second. Pepe sends a ball to the post at the edge of the break. Casillas saves three times, Messi, Pedro and Iniesta, in the last 20 minutes. The match, without goals, will be resolved in extra time.

Minute 103. Cristiano rises in the area before Adriano to head out of reach of Pinto a cross from the left of Di María. Madrid lifts the Cup 18 years later, claims that its ability to stand up to the almighty Barça and opens a decade in which in all seasons at least one title entered the white showcases, something that had not happened since the 1960s. That streak, from 1953-54, of an annual title lasted for 17 years, coinciding with the dominance in the incipient European Cup.

That Cup was a prelude. The following season (2011-12) Madrid sang the alirón four years after the previous one and in 2012-13 they won the Spanish Super Cup., also against the Catalans. Three titles that were in turn another prelude: that of the five-year period in which Madrid once again dominated Europe with an iron fist: four titles in five years.

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Barça's hegemony was weakened, but to sign the change of cycle, the big game piece was missing: the long-awaited Tenth European Cup, who had been resisting since 2002. Ancelotti, with Zidane as second, took over from Mourinho on the bench in 2013-2014. Like his predecessor, the Italian debuted his record as a Madrid coach by winning a Cup, also in a Clásico against Barça, also at the Mestalla. A final this time resolved with a ride from Bale, the Cardiff Express, the last galactic to arrive in the locker room, who surpassed Bartra in the so-called 'Race of all time': he traveled 59.1 meters in 7.04 seconds, 30 strides and six touches to the ball.

That Cup is the last national conquest before a new empire of Madrid on the continent, only comparable to that of the beginnings of the European Cup. Four Champions in five years, the last three in a row. Nobody had repeated a title since the beginning of the Champions era, with all the variants of its format, since the 1992-93 campaign. Nobody had won three in a row since 1976, when Bayern did. Previously Ajax had achieved it in the early 70s. Nobody has managed to match the feat of five Champions achieved by whites in the 50s. The Tenth fell, Madrid took a one-year break, the Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth arrived. One after the other.

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The two Cups came in two Classics. The next two European Cups, in two other iconic duels: no less than two derbies against Atlético. The first, in 2014, in Lisbon, with the historic header by Sergio Ramos that forced the extension in 93. Two years later, in Milan, same protagonists, same winner. This time on penalties and with Zinedine Zidane on the bench as the team's first coach.

Between one end and the other, The European Super Cup and the Club World Cup seasoned a season, 2014-2015, in which Madrid did not win any of the three long-distance titles. When Zidane took over the dressing room in January 2016, he found a team knocked out of the Cup and off the hook in the League. After having come within 12 points of Barça, the championship ended with only one of the Catalans. Insufficient to reach the goal, but just around the corner was waiting for the Eleventh.

“LaLiga has been the happiest day of my career, because there are 38 matches and winning it in the last one is tremendous.” The phrase is from Zinedine Zidane a year later. In his first campaign from the beginning, Madrid won the title that the coach most ponders, the one that is the prize for the day-to-day work that he praises so much in his appearances. The alirón did not arrive alone. Madrid opened the exercise by lifting the European Super Cup and ate the nougat by exhibiting a new Club World Cup to the Christmas visitors of the Bernabéu Tour. The final fireworks of the season remained: La Duodécima, won in Cardiff against Juventus. A League-European Cup double that Madrid won for the third time in its history. The previous one, in 1958. And the first champion to revalidate this condition since 1990.

The Thirteenth was still to come, with no continuity solution, which was accompanied by another European Super Cup, another Club World Cup and a Spanish Super Cup.

In Zidane's hiatus on the bench, Solari led Madrid to the Club World Cup in the ninth consecutive season with at least one title. In the tenth, already again with the French since the beginning of the season, Madrid won the Spanish Super Cup, the first with the new four-way format, and the Coronavirus League. The coach repeated his words from three years ago. “La Liga is the host; this title makes me happier than the Champions League,” he said hotly after winning the title. “When we won this League it was really the best day of my professional life. It was very difficult to win it,” he added weeks later.

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With League 34 in the list of winners, Madrid closed an uninterrupted decade of success. The flow of trophies to the white cabinets did not stop a single year: four Champions, three Leagues, two King's Cups, four Club World Cups, three European Super Cups and three Spanish Super Cups. 22 titles: three with Mourinho, four with Ancelotti, eleven with Zidane and one with Solari. And six seasons in a row (from 2013-14 to 2018-29) leading the UEFA ranking. The second decade of the century kept the burning flame of titles every year. An era that began on April 20 ten years ago with a head from Cristiano Ronaldo to Barça, the beginning of the 21st century for Madrid …