Real Madrid ride their luck before cruising to another Champions League title - ESPN

LONDON — You wonder what went through Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti's head as the half-time whistle blew at Wembley on Saturday night. His team, the heavy favorites and finalists in six of the past 10 years (and winners each time), could well have been two or three goals down against Borussia Dortmund, the Bundesliga's perpetual underachievers.

It was up to him to fix it. We don't know what he said, but you assume not very much. Maybe it was a bit like that scene in «Pulp Fiction,» where the guy unloads his gun at Samuel L. Jackson; Real Madrid had escaped unscathed. Fate had given them a second chance; they had to make it count, and when you've won as much as this group has, you don't need to be reminded of this.

«In the first half, we came out alive [but] they were quite a lot better,» Dani Carvajal would say after the game. «We knew our moment would come. We knew how to suffer.»

We do know what Ancelotti did tactically: very little. There was no panic, and no ripping up the blueprint. Just the tweak of shifting Jude Bellingham into a more central position, rather than have him shuffle wide out of possession. It was as if he was telling his crew: «You guys can do better and the gods of football have given you the chance to prove it.»

That chance was largely down to Thibaut Courtois, the man with the Victor Wembanyama wingspan and the nerves of an F1 driver. The big Belgian goalkeeper made himself even bigger — like those blowfish who double or triple in size — to force Karim Adeyemi wide of goal when he was through one-on-one. And because, for all his blistering speed, Adeyemi sometimes has the delicate touch of an Amazon delivery guy, he ended up taking the ball far enough wide that Dani Carvajal was able to