Real Madrid are magic, it's the only explanation, after sneaking past Chelsea in Champions League - The Warm-Up

WEDNESDAY'S BIG STORIES A wizard did it Ad/> Before last night's game against Real Madrid, Thomas Tuchel told the world (and presumably his Chelsea players) that they would need a fantastic script. And they got one! It's just that in the end it turned out to be written not by Tuchel, or his players, but by some unholy conference of Jerry Bruckheimer, Harry Houdini, Gandalf and, inevitably, Luka Modric. Champions League‘Magic’ of the Bernabeu helped Real Madrid ‘never surrender’ – Ancelotti2 HOURS AGO How did they do it? Nobody knows.

Oh, sure, people will tell you they know. They will say things like «It only takes a few moments to win a football match,» and «Age ain't nothing but a number,» and «Frankly, Chelsea probably should have taken a few more of those chances». But these explanations, fine as they are, share an unspoken admission: you know, we know, and everybody knows that it's magic.

Tear up the pitch at the Bernabeu and you'll find the original European Cup trophy floating in a vat of holy water, brass wires running up to the grass above. Or Alfredo Di Stefano's teeth glowing inside a bone casket. Or an ancient book with yellowed pages that contains, written in blood that somehow never fades, the 1,001 true names of Guti.

How else to explain the fact that, in this game of four halves, Chelsea more-or-less battered their opponents for three of them. And a bit extra! How else to understand the fact that Real Madrid were broken by the third goal, then given their VAR reprieve, then broken again… and yet still didn't collapse. How else to allow for Modric not only seeing that pass, but then trying that pass, and then nailing That Pass.