The game ended with Lucas Vázquez acting as Real Madrid's Haaland but jumping from much further away for a lateral cross. The citizens were able to tie, and it took them 70 minutes, but they couldn't score one more goal.
And so it was that an army of lame people, cramped, broken, and lost from putting their asses in the area and running after the ball, conspired to at least reach the penalties. A conspiracy from another era, an impossible objective seeing the deployment by land, sea, and air of the last European champion. It could not be lost; it was not lost. And what happened? That the shootout was won, that the match was won, and that Real Madrid, or what remains of it after 120 minutes, stood up against a hydraulic press. It was the first to win, first to beat, it was the first to be the champion. And that's what Real Madrid did on Wednesday night. It was an exhibition of competitiveness, convincing themselves that City's overwhelming machine was not going to be able to cope with them. The ball, which they call "rained" in slang, was brought down by Bellingham, it would seem, with his hands dying at his side, and he disrupted two defenders. Pajarito Valverde received the ball and gave it to Vinicius, ahead of his markers but not one in blue who appeared in the VAR photo enabling him. The Brazilian faked his defender to scratch a few precious centimeters, and his very strong cross was caught by a forward, Rodrygo, who rubbed his hands on Ronaldo Nazario's legs and then rubbed them on his; He shot once and shot twice from the penalty spot. Antonio Rudiger, who has been at Madrid for twenty seasons, scored the decisive penalty; very close to the side of the net, it seems that he even touches the stick, and the explosion of incomprehension, relief, and euphoria was absolute. "What was that?" said a sleepless boy when he heard the shouting in a Madrid building after Rudiger's goal.