Real Madrid vs. Juventus, 2017 Champions League final: Live coverage and score updates

Coming into the Champions League final, it was widely considered that Real Madrid was the more talented team but that Juventus had a real chance to win because of their tactical nous brought by the mind of Max Allegri. It’s not that Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane is an incapable tactician — it’s just that with only a year-and-a-half spent as a first-division manager, he doesn’t have nearly the wealth of experience of Allegri to bring to bear.

What actually happened, though, was a tactical chess match that Zidane and Real Madrid came out on top of to the tune of a 4-1 win, with Zidane making the key adjustment that directly led to Madrid’s triumph — and Allegri failing to come up with an answer for it. For as intense a strategic matchup as the first half was, it was a decision made by Zidane in the second half that broke the match open — and broke Juventus’ once-indomitable spirit.

Imagine you’re one of the best soccer players in the entire world, about to face Juventus in the UEFA Champions League final.

You’re warming up on the pitch when all of a sudden...

The highest scoring player in the history of the UEFA Champions League has two more goals. Here’s how Cristiano Ronaldo put Real Madrid ahead of Juventus 1-0 in Saturday’s final.

Ronaldo did some excellent work not just to score, but to draw defenders towards him and play a pass out wide to Dani Carvajal. He did more than just finish this move.

Sami Khedira is going to have nightmares about this goal for years. While Casemiro’s goal was far from his fault, it was the deflection of Khedira’s feet that saw the ball fly past Gigi Buffon, into the back of the net.

This lucky goal put Real Madrid up 2-1 on Juventus in the UEFA Champions League final.

In 2002, Zinedine Zidane scored what many believe to be the greatest ever goal in a UEFA Champions League final. Here’s the volley that beat Bayer Leverkusen and salvaged the first Galácticos project.

But Zidane has been presented with a challenge for his throne, and it happened live, right in front of his own face. During Saturday’s UEFA Champions League final between Real Madrid and Juventus — in which Zidane was coaching Los Merengues — Mario Mandžukic scored this stunner against Zidane’s club.

The lineups are out for the UEFA Champions League final between Real Madrid and Juventus, and there are plenty of talking points on both sides.

Los Merengues have the bigger one — Gareth Bale won’t start. Bale’s last appearance arguably came too soon after an injury, causing him to aggravate it. He was passed fit to play in his hometown, but Zinedine Zidane doesn’t want to take any chances. He’s selected the more certainly match fit Isco in Bale’s place.

The clichéd footballing purist will tell you there’s no beauty in the art of defending. After all, to defend is to engage in the miserable act of negation; only with the ball is the positive act of construction rendered plausible, a goal being the ultimate reward for crafting something from nothing: in football’s case, that of a well-executed team move, or a sublime act of individual skill.

But the purist — perhaps by definition — is wrong. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder, and there are plenty of those who’ll testify to the simple, destructive joy of watching Leonardo Bonucci crush the dreams of all those who stand before him. The Juventus centre-back, a towering figure with the kind of iconic visage you’d ordinarily expect to find in marble statue or the sepia pages of an aging Panini album, will be the rock at the heart of his side’s defence in Saturday’s Champions League final, and watching him is sure to be one of the highlights.