The 2017 UEFA Champions League final in Cardiff will go down in memory as one of the most thrilling encounters as Real Madrid beat Juventus 4-1 at The Principality Stadium to seal their 12th European crown.
The first 45 minutes saw end-to-end action and though Juventus dominated the half, it was Real that drew first blood when Cristiano Ronaldo scored the opener in the 20th minute. However, Mario Mandzukic scored the equaliser just seven minutes later with a beautifully constructed team goal topped off with an overhead kick.
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But the second half saw The Old Lady fail to work together as a unit while Zinedine Zidane’s side ran riot and scored three more past a hapless defence with goals from Casemiro, Ronaldo and Marco Asensio.
Here is a list of all the records set and milestones reached in the final.
Real Madrid
1 – Real Madrid became the first team to retain the Champions League trophy in the UCL era. The last team to win two back-to-back European titles was AC Milan (1989 and 1990)
12 – This was Real Madrid’s 12th European Cup/Champions League trophy win ever since the competition was started in the 1955/56 season. No other team has won more. The next best team is AC Milan with seven titles (last win in 2007).
500 – Real Madrid became the first club to score 500 goals in the Champions League era (since 1992/93). The next best are Barcelona (459 goals) and Bayern Munich (415 goals).
1st goal – Ivan Zamorano; 100th goal – Savio; 200th goal – Ronaldo Nazario; 300th goal – Karim Benzema; 400th & 500th goal – Cristiano Ronaldo
24 – No team has won more international titles than Real Madrid. Half of them are Champions League trophies.
1 – Real Madrid won the title by keeping just one clean sheet in the entire competition. Over 13 games in the group and knockout stages, the only time they kept a clean sheet was in the 3-0 win over Atletico Madrid in the first leg of the semi-finals.
2 – Real have accomplished the La Liga-European Cup double for the first time since the 1957/58 season.
10 – Zinedine Zidane is the first manager to retain the title in the UCL era but the 10th manager to win consecutive European Cups/Champions League titles. He is also the third Real Madrid manager to achieve this feat.
| # | MANAGER | TEAM | YEARS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jose Llorente | Real Madrid | 1956 & 1957 |
| 2 | Luis Carniglia | Real Madrid | 1958 & 1959 |
| 3 | Bela Guttmann | Benfica | 1961 & 1962 |
| 4 | Helenio Herrera | Inter Milan | 1964 & 1965 |
| 5 | Stefan Kovacs | Ajax | 1972 & 1973 |
| 6 | Dettmar Cramer | Bayern Munich | 1974 & 1975 |
| 7 | Bob Paisley | Liverpool | 1977 & 1978 |
| 8 | Brian Clough | Nottingham Forest | 1979 & 1980 |
| 9 | Arrigo Sacchi | AC Milan | 1989 & 1990 |
| 10 | Zinedine Zidane | Real Madrid | 2016 & 2017 |
Juventus
5 – Juventus have lost their last five Champions League finals. They last won the trophy in 1996 when they beat Ajax. They have since lost in 1997 (Borussia Dortmund), 1998 (Real Madrid), 2003 (AC Milan), 2015 (Barcelona), and now in 2017.
This is only the second time a team has lost five European finals. The first team to do so was Benfica (1963, 1965, 1968, 1988, and 1990)
7 – Juventus have also lost a European final seven times. No other team has lost so many. Benfica and Bayern come the closest with five losses in finals.
4 – Juventus conceded more goals in this match (64 minutes) than in the entire campaign (1080 minutes) prior to the final. They had only conceded thrice before the final (twice in the group stages to Lyon and Sevilla, and once in the semi-final against Monaco).
3 – Mario Mandzukic became only the third player to score for two different teams in the UCL final (he had scored in Bayern Munich’s 2-1 win over Borussia Dortmund in 2013). The first two were Velibor Vasovic & Cristiano Ronaldo.
30 – Juve's starting XI was the second oldest squad (average age) named for a Champions League final. The oldest squad was AC Milan’s team in 2007 (31 years old)
39 – Gianluigi Buffon became the third oldest player to take part in a UCL final. The oldest was Dino Zoff (41 with Juventus) followed by Edwin van der Sar (40 with Manchester United)
100 – This was Dani Alves’ 100th Champions League match. He had beaten Real Madrid 22 times prior to this game – more than any other player in history.
1 – Juan Cuadrado became the first substitute to be sent off in a UCL final after he received a second yellow card.
Cristiano Ronaldo
12 – Ronaldo finished the season as the Champions League top goalscorer yet again. He overtook Lionel Messi who was on 11 goals.
6 – This is the sixth time Ronaldo has finished as top goalscorer – one more than Messi – and the first time a player has been top scorer in five consecutive seasons. His previous best seasons were 2007/08 (8 goals), 2012/13 (12 goals), 2013/14 (17 goals), 2014/15 (10 goals), and 2015/16 (16 goals).
600 – Ronaldo scored his 600th goal of his career for both club and country in his 855th game.
3 – Ronaldo has now scored in three different finals. Alfredo Di Stefano is the only other player to have scored in three different European finals.
The Portuguese forward scored in 2008 for Manchester United (against Chelsea), 2014 (against Atletico Madrid) and now in 2017. In 2016, he only scored in the penalty shootout and not during the game.
2 – Ronaldo also became only the third player to score the opening goal in two different finals. The first was Sandro Mazzola (for Inter Milan in 1964 & 1965) followed by Franz Roth (for Bayern Munich in 1975 & !976)
5 – Ronaldo has never failed to score against Juventus. He has now scored 6 goals in 5 games against the Italian side.
4 – Ronaldo has scored 4 goals in UCL finals; which is twice as many as any other player.
Key stats courtesy of Opta, Gracenote, Mister Chiping and WhoScored
Also read: Juventus 1-4 Real Madrid - 5 Talking Points
