Real Madrid vs. Juventus: Final score 4-1, Cristiano Ronaldo scores twice in Champions League final win

Real Madrid made a lot of history on Saturday by beating Juventus.

A wonderfully competitive first half in the Champions League final gave way to a dominant slugfest of a second half, with Real Madrid coming out on top in a 4-1 win over Juventus. Cristiano Ronaldo’s brace gave Madrid their 12th Champions League title in club history, and a remarkable and historic third win in four years.

The opening stages of the match were a delightful game of counter-tactics. Juventus started out the match with a right-leaning defensive setup meant as a direct counter to the presence of Cristiano Ronaldo on Real Madrid’s left. About ten minutes into the match, Zinedine Zidane switched his formation to a diamond midfield with Ronaldo as the right-sided forward of the two up top to give him more space. Other small changes back and forth showed that both Zidane and Juventus boss Max Allegri were willing to throw whatever it took at each other to win, and Real Madrid came away with the first major advantage.

That advantage came in the form of a 20th minute Cristiano Ronaldo goal, played as a sort of give-and-go with Dani Carvajal. Ronaldo had drifted in from the right to receive the ball at the edge of the box, then slid it out to Carvajal as Juventus’ defense collapsed onto him, who quickly centered it back up for Ronaldo. The Portuguese striker had found a pocket of space while the ball was away, and it was a one-touch finish with a slight deflection off Leonardo Bonucci from there to give Madrid the early lead.

That advantage wouldn’t last long, though, with Juventus surging ahead and seeming to catch Real Madrid on the back foot. A sequence of Juventus knocking around a ball in the air in and around the penalty area lead to Gonzalo Higuain chesting the ball up for Mario Mandžukić, who chested it back up for himself — then, while facing away from goal, flipped up and over for a lobbed bicycle kick that beat Keylor Navas and leveled the scoreline.

That sparked off a desperate sequence of play from both teams, with some hard fouls and anxious misses along the way. The pace of the game was high, but both teams kept making little adjustments along the way to try and find an advantage — Real Madrid swapping midfielder placement, Juventus adjusting the positioning of their front three, Madrid pushing their fullbacks higher to press, Juventus narrowing their own midfield to take advantage of the space inside — and it made for a scintillating run to the halftime whistle.

The second half started with a lot of physical play from both sides, with trainers from both teams getting busy several times in the opening stretch of the half. Madrid had the better parts of the attacking play in that time, but couldn’t take advantage of that and find a way to score -- at least until a hopeful lob from range by Casemiro caught a fortunate deflection and beat Gianluigi Buffon for a 61st minute goal.

That shocking goal caught a lot of people off guard, and seemed to take a lot of the wind out of Juventus’ sails. Real Madrid took full and lethal advantage of that, with Dani Carvajal and Luka Modric combining on a run down their right side to set up a near-post goal for Ronaldo to make it 3-1. The dying minutes saw them score one last goal, with young rising star Marco Asensio converting a Marcelo cross from about eight yards out to make it 4-1, completing the second-half humbling of a Juventus team that had fought so hard in the first half.

Juventus lost a lot of their poise and composure after going down two goals, struggling to find their way back into the match despite their best efforts. That lead to a lot of frustration in the Italian team, typified by Juan Cuadrado getting sent off for picking up two yellow cards with senseless fouls in just 17 minutes on the pitch after coming on as a substitute. It was a disappointing end to what had been an excellent season for Juventus — but they’ll be back and hungrier than ever next season.

The win for Real Madrid is historic for several reasons — not only is it their 12th title, a record they already held after winning last year, but their successful defense of their Champions League title makes them the first to win two in a row since AC Milan won their second straight in 1990. It’s also their third win in four years, a remarkable and almost unprecedented achievement, needing to go all the way back to the 1970’s when both Bayern Munich and Ajax won three in a row during a very different era in the sport.

Juventus: Gianluigi Buffon; Giorgio Chiellini, Leonardo Bonucci, Andrea Barzagli (Juan Cuadrado 66’, red 83’); Alex Sandro, Miralem Pjanic (Claudio Marchisio 70’), Sami Khedira, Dani Alves; Paulo Dybala (Mario Lemina 78’), Mario Mandžukić; Gonzalo Higuain

Goals: Mandžukić (27’)

Real Madrid: Keylor Navas; Marcelo, Sergio Ramos, Raphaël Varane, Dani Carvajal; Casemiro, Luka Modrić, Toni Kroos (Alvaro Morata 89’); Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema (Gareth Bale 77’), Isco (Marco Asensio 82’)

Goals: Ronaldo (20’, 64’), Casemiro (61’), Asensio (90’)

Three things we learned

Juventus and Real Madrid really are the two best teams in the world right now

This match showed that there was no fluke in who made the Champions League final — the way these two titans of the sport went toe-to-toe and blow-for-blow all throughout the first half cemented the fact that, right now, there are no teams better anywhere in the world.

Neither team is perfect, obviously, but in the biggest match of the season both teams came to play at a high level and did exactly that. This was the best Champions League final in recent memory — heck, probably the best final in any major competition in the sport in the last few years — for the sheer quality and competitive evenness of it, with both teams forced to pull out all the stops to gain any advantage they could. It was utterly fantastic to watch, and was exactly the kind of game we always want to see in a major competition final like this.

Cristiano Ronaldo is still a sublime big-game performer

Ronaldo is getting older and slowing down, but he still knows how to turn it on when the games really count. To that end, his performance in this final was one of the best we’ve seen from him in a long, long time, with a brace of goals and a sublime performance that cements his legacy as one of the best players not just of the modern era, but of all time.

And it wasn’t just the goals that made this such a good game for Ronaldo. He was a constant creative force as well, trying to make things happen during times when Juventus’ defense was dominating some of his teammates. His runs and passing and even at times just his presence on the ball helped open things up so much for Real Madrid, and a lot of Madrid’s dominance in the second half was largely because of Ronaldo’s influence. It was a phenomenal performance, and one worth celebrating.

Juventus lost their edge because of one missed adjustment

Juventus had been going blow-for-blow with Real Madrid brilliantly thanks to a series of in-game tactical adjustments, but it was one missed adjustment from Max Allegri that cost them the game. Very early in the second half, Real Madrid shifted their formation to push the fullbacks high and overload on the wings, getting constant two-on-one battles against Juventus’ wide defenders. Allegri never really did anything to try to counter that, and that lack of adjustment allowed Real Madrid to take control of the match.

Both of Real Madrid’s early second half goals came because of those matchups, with the loose ball Casemiro pounced on coming from the left flank with Marcelo and Isco working over Andrea Barzagli, then the second coming from Modric and Carvajal putting Alex Sandro in knots on the right. If Juventus had kept up in the tactical chess match, they may have kept things even, but that one missed move cost them dearly.