Football journalist and author Guillem Balagué talks about Real Madrid's love affair with the UEFA Champions League and the emphasis that the club places on winning at any cost.
It’s not just the birds, the flowers, and the hibernating animals that wake up in spring. It’s also the time of year when Real Madrid blossom, rousing themselves from their slumber.
In Real Madrid and Manchester City, we have two clubs who now seem destined to meet annually, a club that wins the competition roughly once every five years and one that has won it only once.
For Real Madrid, No Mbappé, no Bellingham, no Rodrygo, a youngster like Thiago Pitarch in the line up… no problem.
We’ve seen this before: Real Madrid unfancied, off-colour in the league, yet somehow transformed when the big knockout nights arrive. A comprehensive 3–0 win — and it could have been more — plus a stellar hat-trick from the outrageous Fede Valverde that leaves Manchester City with a mountain to climb in Tuesday’s second leg.
Does 15 wins in 71 competitions matter to analyse this fixture? Of course it does.
With those amount of titles, there is little wonder so many at Real Madrid hold an almost illogical belief that the club has a divine right to win this competition. They have won more UEFA Champions Leagues this century (eight) than any other club has managed in the entire 71 year history of the tournament. After Madrid, the next closest is AC Milan with seven wins.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Power, success, and Real Madrid have always been close companions. During the Franco era, the club was Spain’s representative on the world stage and had to be seen as the very best the country could offer. The national anthem, not the club’s, was played wherever they went, and with that came enormous responsibility.
Winning became the style of Real Madrid. Built on as a result of early successes that reinforced the perception that the club had of itself as the ultimate football institution, built on tradition, glory and excellence, and then reproduced from the year 2000 by Florentino Perez.
Even today, the presidential box at the Bernabéu remains the place to be — packed with the great and the good from politics, finance, sport, television, film, and media. The best in their fields want to be associated with success.
Fame, power, and victory are intertwined, and to stay in that exalted company, winning becomes an obligation.
That power permeates every corner of the new Bernabéu. Rivals go through a tunnel that has a selection of Real Madrid titles before getting into the changing room. It lifts those who wear the shirt and weighs heavily on opponents. Many players and managers have spoken of the stadium’s “scenic fear”.
The consequence is inevitable: everyone at the club is demanding, and winning becomes the only acceptable philosophy. New players walk not only in the stadium but also in the training ground lined with images of football’s greatest names. Their mental resolve is tested from day one. Those who fail — and there have been many — do not last long. Think Eden Hazard, Kaká, Nicolas Anelka, James Rodríguez, Antonio Cassano, Robinho, Wesley Sneijder, Rafael Van der Vaart, Arjen Robben, Emmanuel Adebayor, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.
Those who survive develop the thickest of skins. From them come the victories and the improbable comebacks that have become Real Madrid’s UEFA Champions League trademark. And from such triumphs come new heroes like Fede Valverde, whose performance against City last Wednesday could secure Madrid’s place in the quarter-finals but also cement his place among the Bernabéu’s greats.
I asked Carlo Ancelotti and Dani Carvajal about what made the comebacks of 2022 possible. They both said the same. No matter what the clock said, how many minutes left, they always thought they could get what they needed. And they sensed the rivals knew that too.
On top of it all, or perhaps as a consequence of winning being the priority, at Real Madrid, it is always substance over style.
Jorge Valdano — the Argentine World Cup winner, former general manager, and the man who coined “scenic fear” — once summed it up perfectly:
“In Madrid, style has never kept anyone awake. The style is to win… winning was, from the beginning of time, an institutional necessity. The essential thing is that when a player arrives at Madrid, he learns right away that anything short of winning is called a catastrophe. The club asks only that they live up to history. The fans too, and without any kindness. He who bears that pressure is up to the task.”
Alfredo Relaño, former editor of Diario AS, captured the contrast with Barcelona even more succinctly:
“Barça is a sentimental area and Madrid an instrument of conquest.”
No player is bigger than the club. Ask anyone who has played there: no matter your name or reputation, if you don’t deliver, they will remind you — loudly — of your obligations. Every star has been whistled at the Bernabéu. Zidane, Raul, Mbappe, Vini Jr., even Ronaldo at his most prolific was not exempt.
Ultimately, it is the footballers, those that pass all the filters, who define success or failure at Real Madrid. The club empowers the player who is not submitted to a formation or a way of playing.
With the possible exceptions of Fabio Capello’s and José Mourinho’s spells, there have been very few periods in Real Madrid’s history when the coach has mattered more than the players.
“If you come here and want to be part of this, then write a bit of history for the club,” former Real Madrid legend Clarence Seedorf explains. “It doesn’t matter how big a name you have, no player has been able to think he is bigger than the club. That is the environment that any player that comes in has to deal with. And if you can deal with it you’re in the most amazing club in the world. If you can’t then you’re in the worst place that you can be.”
"The Madrid player does not look at his bench when things go wrong. He looks inside himself and remembers why Madrid signed him - because he is amazingly good, because he is the man for that moment and for that place."
The player looks at the badge on his shirt and does not need reminding that it was worn by the likes of Di Stefano, Gento, Raul, Zidane, Cristiano, Sergio Ramos, Benzema, Modric, Kroos.
The simple fact of doing so gives him such a surge of confidence that the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling. Only the best are worthy of wearing that badge; therefore I must be among the best. And through that belief, a footballer who is already very talented becomes even better.
And it makes it easier to win.
