Champions League final memories: What winning means to fans

The Champions League is perhaps club football’s most important tournament and the European Cup the most prestigious trophy to raise. With Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid set to do battle in the final on Saturday, we asked fans of the last three winners what the games meant to them.
Bayern Munich - 2013
by Phil Quinn, Bavarian Football Works

I was a nervous wreck heading into the 2013 Champions League Final, even though I knew that Bayern Munich was better than Borussia Dortmund. They had proven it on the field with a win and a draw in the league and a win over them in the DFB-Pokal. Bayern finished 25 points ahead of BVB in the Bundesliga. However, cup finals are always less predictable, and if anyone could figure out how to beat the Bayern juggernaut, it was Dortmund.

Before the match, I allowed myself a moment to sit back and enjoy what we were about to witness. We experienced the all-Italian, all-Spanish, and all-English finals, and now we finally get the all-German final. As a fan of the Bundesliga, it was almost as if the league was receiving it’s due on the international stage after years of “rebuilding” its teams back to an elite level.

Losing the previous season’s Champions League Final to Chelsea at the Allianz Arena was tough for all Bayern fans to take. Seeing Die Fußballgott Bastian Schweinsteiger clang his penalty off the post was devastating. However, as the 2012-13 season progressed, I was filled with a renewed optimism. Bayern seemed to be on a mission to conquer the world. Following the club’s destruction of Juventus and Barcelona in the lead up to the final, it began to feel a bit like destiny. This was Bayern’s trophy to lose.

As for the final itself, I was going to be writing about it for Bavarian Football Works, so I sat back on my own couch to take notes during the match. Little did I know at kickoff that my notes would cease around the seventieth minute as nerves overwhelmed me, and I would finish watching the match with my hands clasped and teeth clenched.

In most big games, a few breaks have to go your way, but once they do, you have to take advantage of them. After Dortmund found their equalizer, I remember being paralyzed by fear. This was not going to happen again. Bayern were not going to lose another final like this. What would happen to this club if they lost three Champions League Finals in four years?

Thank god for Arjen Robben.

When the Dutch winger weaved through the Dortmund defense in the dying minutes, my eyes grew. This was the moment. Robben had squandered several chances earlier in the match, but something about this was different. As the ball rolled across Roman Weidenfeller’s goal line, I realized that I had left my feet. Then, the emotions came. I couldn’t hold back the tears.

It was redemption for Robben. It was redemption for Schweinsteiger. It was redemption for FC Bayern Munich.

Chelsea - 2012
by Graham MacAree, We Ain’t Got No History

Chelsea’s run in 2012 was little short of perverse. It ended with the finest moment in club history, made even sweeter by the fact that everyone else was happily telling us the title was undeserved. The club was in crisis (A 6th place finish! For Chelsea!), we’d had to claw our way back from horrendous deficits in both the first knockout round against Napoli and then in the semifinals against Barcelona and our opponents in the finals were both a better, more balanced side and blessed with the advantage of playing at home.

That we overcame the odds, regardless of means, is an utterly remarkable accomplishment.

It felt like every single time I took a breath, Arjen Robben was cutting inside and firing at goal or Mario Gomez was finding space in the box. It was hardly a defensive masterclass -- we were doing just enough to ensure that Bayern Munich’s shots were missing rather than preventing them from shooting in the first place, and the fear was that if Petr Cech’s guard was breached once, we were in for a slaughter.

But Cech held and the defence held. Both Gary Cahill and David Luiz were playing through pain, both coming back into the squad too soon after injuries. Jose Bosingwa was Jose Bosingwa and therefore a constant source of terror when he was squared up against Franck Ribery. The only outfield players who gave us any semblance of calm, cool strength were Ashley Cole and John Obi Mikel.

It was obvious that we couldn’t hold out for 90 minutes without conceding, but the goal, coming so late, felt like a hammer blow. Toni Kroos crossed, Thomas Müller mis-hit a header, but it bounced past Cech anyway to give the Bavarians a 1-0 lead 83 minutes in. Unsere Stadt, Unser Stadion, Unser Pokal, they told us. For five minutes, it looked like they’d be right.

Then came Didier Drogba. Chelsea’s first corner kick of the game, won by Fernando Torres and taken by Juan Mata, was bulleted past an exceptionally annoyed-looking Manuel Neuer to restore parity just before the death. I’m told that my scream registered on the Richter Scale, I certainly don’t remember much about the aftermath apart from the running and delirious shouting.

But at 1-1, there was more to come. It’s easy to forget, with so many key penalties to follow, that Robben missed one in the middle of extra time, but there it was, a weak, scuffed shot that Cech gathered gratefully to his midriff. By then it was obvious that this was the last chance to win before a shootout, and the shootout duly came.

I spent most of it hiding behind the couch in fetal position. Mata’s miss felt fatal, despite brilliant replies from David Luiz and Frank Lampard. Then Cech saved against Ivica Olic, Cole responded with perhaps the most brilliantly taken penalty of all time, it it was down to Bastian Schweinsteiger and Didier Drogba in the final round.

As soon as the former missed, the game felt over. Drogba wasn’t going to miss, and in sending Neuer the wrong way he lifted every single continental demon off the club’s shoulders. In what could have been our worst season in a decade, Chelsea were European Champions. Unser Pokal indeed.

Barcelona - 2011
by Boštjan Černenšek, Barca Blaugranes

Ah, 2011, the old days. Ever since that magical 3-1 victory against Manchester United at Wembley Stadium times haven’t been kind to FC Barcelona, but that was one night in late May that Culés will struggle to forget. Circumstances forced me to watch the game at a wedding, but even though I’m not a huge fan of attending these types of events, especially when they coincide with the Champions League Final, I have to admit I remember this wedding fondly.

In the build-up to this game the emotions from the last time these two sides met at this stage of the competition, in 2009, came flowing back again. In many ways Barcelona played an excellent game that day in Rome, but everybody seemed to feel that the Barça side of 2011 was even stronger. The Catalan side was also considered as a comfortable favorite by most pundits, and that combined with the feeling mentioned above could’ve been a double-edged sword.

And the early minutes of the game brought those fears alive as Man United came storming out of the gates. But when Barcelona weathered that early storm and started asserting their style of play the confidence started growing, and when Pedro scored the opener I think I smiled for the first time since kickoff. Though I have to admit that I didn’t really celebrate; it was too early in the game for that and us Barcelona fans always tend to err on the pessimistic side. And just like that, not seven minutes later the football gods took away what they gave earlier with Wayne Rooney scoring the equalizer.

It felt like a kick in the “you know where”, especially as Barcelona were playing some brilliant football. But herein lies the brilliance of this beautiful game; no matter how well you’re playing, you can concede, even lose, at any moment. Still, the remainder of the half left me remarkably confident going forward and those feeling were only confirmed in the second half when Barça launched an onslaught on Edwin Van der Sar’s goal. Shots were coming from all sides but finally it was Messi who put Barcelona back in the lead with a shot from the middle.

With the way the game was going a second Manchester United comeback seemed unlikely, but an uneasy feeling remained. However, when David Villa curled one in to double the lead and Messi fell to his knees, I very nearly followed suit amidst a large crowd that seemed to forget about the weeding further down the hall. With only 20 minutes left to play and a two goal lead, I finally started to relax. And the joy I felt at the final whistle is hard to describe.

But those 90 minutes in the end seemed like only the prelude to the event of the night when Carles Puyol gave his captain’s armband to Eric Abidal so the Frenchman could lift the trophy after playing the entire 90 minutes of the game just months after surgery to remove a tumor on his liver. It was a picture perfect ending to difficult season, on and off the pitch.