Taking on Real Madrid is taking on football history itself

Real Madrid, a club apart. Winning a 15th European Cup – Champions League in modern parlance – in London on June 1 would only add to their extraterrestrial status. From the competition’s mid-20th century beginnings to dominating in the early 21st century, the Spanish giants have set the bar and kept raising it. 

Such success is not to everyone’s tastes, of course, and Borussia Dortmund will be the neutral’s choice at Wembley. The German club, full of working-class support in the Ruhr valley, represent something rather different to what Real are, royal and aristocratic by definition, and still the destination that any young player aspires to.