Real Madrid’s golden era sustained by myth, epic and cold intelligence

As the world turned a shade of white close to midnight in Paris, dissolving into a familiar frieze – the same shapes and songs, the Champions League trophy waved about with the same sense of dieu et mon droit – there was also a feeling of something revealing itself, of a question being answered.

In the build-up to Real Madrid’s narrow but decisive victory at Stade de France on Saturday night there had been a lot of talk in England about claims on greatness and ultimacy, born out of Liverpool’s own thrillingly sustained attempt to chase the sun right to the seasons’s end.

For Jürgen Klopp’s team there is only glory in falling just short of the peak, a point, a goal, a game from the perfect season. But one mystery was at least solved in Paris. Greatness you say? A team for the ages? I can tell you, messieurs et mesdames, the killers are in this room right now.

This is the big thing about ultimacy. It doesn’t happen very often. Or rather, it keeps on happening the same way. Other empires will rise, other seats of power, tactics, systems and economic might. But this is still by any reasonable measure the age of the Meringues. Albeit an age that is still hard to explain or define without falling back on things like magic and bloodline, leftover brilliance.

What is the model here? What does the age of Madrid mean? How do we replicate it? The obvious response is that you can’t, not without actually being Real Madrid, and there is space for only one of those. This is the great thing about believing your own divine right of kings myth. Just telling that story, repeating over and over that Madrid know how to win, is a source of power in itself.

There is an epic, almost bardic quality to these five Champions League triumphs in