How do Real Madrid keep creating European magic?

“It’s something unexplainable,” Carlo Ancelotti said, more than once, on a night when he could have been talking about any number of elements.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

The Real Madrid manager was of course talking about his team’s astonishing capacity for victory in this competition.

On the other side, looking at such relentless winners, Harry Kane was struggling to work out another high-profile defeat. And that was the thing – he really looked beaten. It was impossible not to feel sorry for Kane, especially given what the scenario was as he went off with what Thomas Tuchel said was a back injury. That was the 85th minute and Bayern Munich had one foot in the final. They were 1-0 up, and Real Madrid just couldn’t seem to find a way through Manuel Neuer. He had been brilliant, which made it more inexplicable that he spilled the ball at Joselu’s feet in the crucial moment.

What must the goalscorer have been thinking? Just two years ago, the former Stoke City forward was in Paris as a fan watching Real Madrid win the Champions League final. He’s now sent them back to that stage, after scoring another goal that followed so quickly no one had time to make sense of it all.

“It happened again,” Ancelotti smiled, “what has happened so many times.”

And yet there was still something more. There was still the most inexplicable moment of the night, which had so many elements to it that it’s hard to make sense of. Tuchel’s emotion was clear. He was furious. Mattijs de Ligt had the ball in the net for what seemed a dramatic stoppage-time equaliser but the pace of play had already indicated it was nothing like that. The assistant had flagged, the referee had whistled, and Real Madrid had stopped playing. Andriy Lunin barely made an attempt at a save.