Amsterdam 1998: Real Madrid's Seventh

In its early years, the European Cup almost seemed to belong to Real Madrid. The club won the first five editions, between 1956 and 1960, and added a sixth in 1966. Then came a long drought. In 1981 they reached another final, in Paris, and lost it 1-0 to Liverpool. In the second half of the 1980s, the Quinta del Buitre generation (Emilio Butragueño, Míchel, Rafael Martín Vázquez, Miguel Pardeza and Manolo Sanchís) won five league titles in a row but never managed to conquer Europe.

In the 1997-98 season, Madrid entered the competition as champions of Spain. The club was run by president Lorenzo Sanz and coached by the German Jupp Heynckes. The squad brought together stars from several countries: German goalkeeper Bodo Illgner, Brazilian Roberto Carlos, Argentine Fernando Redondo, Dutchman Clarence Seedorf, Yugoslav Predrag Mijatović and Croatian Davor Šuker, alongside Fernando Hierro, Raúl and Fernando Morientes, newly arrived from Zaragoza. Frenchman Christian Karembeu joined in mid-season. Of the Quinta, only Sanchís remained, and he was the captain.

In the group stage, Madrid finished first with 13 points, ahead of Rosenborg, Olympiacos and Porto. At the Bernabéu they beat Rosenborg 4-1, Olympiacos 5-1 and Porto 4-0, and their only defeat was a 2-0 loss in Norway. In the quarter-finals they knocked out Bayer Leverkusen: 1-1 in Germany and 3-0 in Madrid.

The semi-final first leg, against holders Borussia Dortmund, produced one of the most bizarre scenes in the history of the competition. On April 1, 1998, before kick-off, a group of fans climbed the safety net behind one of the goals at the Bernabéu. The net was tied to the goal frame with cables, and the weight brought it down. The stadium had no spare, so the match started more than an hour late, once a replacement finally arrived from the club's Ciudad Deportiva. When the game was played, Madrid won 2-0 with goals from Karembeu and Morientes. They drew 0-0 in Dortmund and reached the final.

Waiting for them was Marcello Lippi's Juventus, playing their third final in a row: they had won in 1996 and lost in 1997. They had just won their 25th Scudetto and had Zinedine Zidane, Edgar Davids, Didier Deschamps, Filippo Inzaghi and Alessandro Del Piero, who had scored 32 goals that season.

The final was played on May 20, 1998 at the Amsterdam Arena, in front of 48,500 spectators, with German referee Hellmut Krug in charge. Heynckes lined up with Illgner; Panucci, Hierro, Sanchís and Roberto Carlos; Redondo, Karembeu and Seedorf; Raúl, Morientes and Mijatović. The first half ended 0-0. The centre-back pairing of Hierro and Sanchís held Del Piero and Inzaghi in check, and Redondo ran the midfield.

In the 66th minute came the move that changed the club's recent history. Roberto Carlos struck from the left side of the box, the ball deflected off Mark Iuliano and fell to Mijatović, who rounded goalkeeper Angelo Peruzzi and slotted it in with his left foot. The replays left doubts about a possible offside. Mijatović always maintained that Gianluca Pessotto, who was out of the camera shot, was playing him onside, and no Juventus player protested. It was his only goal in that entire Champions League campaign.

Juventus could not equalise. At the final whistle, Manolo Sanchís, the last representative of the Quinta del Buitre, lifted the trophy. Thirty-two years earlier, his father, Manuel Sanchís Martínez, had won the sixth with the same club. In Madrid, some 4,000 people watched the match on a giant screen at the Palacio de los Deportes.

The joy was not enough to save Heynckes. In the league, Madrid had finished fourth with 63 points, and the club sacked him eight days after the final. Even so, that night ended the longest wait in Real Madrid's European history and opened a new era: the team won the Champions League again in 2000 and 2002.