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TSN Soccer Analyst

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History is never kind to the nearly men. 

When years are put together as eras, it is the winners that stand out, married forever to the year and their achievement. 

Real Madrid know this better than anyone in Europe. They have now won the biggest competition in club football 11 times. It is a remarkable number that will take any team decades to reach. It is this competition that has defined them and made them the true superpower flexing their financial weight above all else to be crowned the undisputed European champions.

Their victory over Atletico Madrid on Saturday at the San Siro gives them another glorious trophy to place in their crowded cabinet, but make no mistake, aside from the silverware, very little of this win can relate to the past 10 triumphs. 

Cristiano Ronaldo's penalty kick secured the victory, but it was the miss from Juanfran just seconds earlier that effectively sealed Atletico Madrid's fate and handed Real their own. 

Ronaldo and Real were poor for large parts of this match. Credit them for a fast start and a professional finish while wobbling on the ropes, but in between, the performance was not fitting of a true champion. Atletico under Diego Simeone have so often set early tones in games to impose themselves on opponents and secure early advantages in the mind and on the scoresheet. This time an indisciplined, uncharacteristic opening 15 minutes would end up costing them the win.

It was a marvelous dead-ball delivery, once again from Toni Kroos in a big game, that landed on the head of Gareth Bale, who drifted away from a lethargic Fernando Torres. Bale's flick to Sergio Ramos put Real ahead. Bale and Sergio Ramos, like Kroos, are two players who so often have now played integral moments in big games. 

Atleti settled down and grabbed control of the game, passing more with the side of their feet rather than direct long balls hit off the laces. Simeone's half-time substitution was the same as in Munich at the semi-final - Yannick Carrasco for Augusto Fernandez - and it had a similar impact. The Belgian winger was marvellous in attack and Koke, now placed centrally, got more on the ball. The opening 60 seconds of the second half was classic Atletico, pinning an opponent deep, winning the ball back and putting pressure on the defence. They won a penalty and appeared to brilliantly gain momentum back as they have so often done this season. Antonie Griezmann, a poster boy for France 2016, wanted one more big goal before turning his attention towards Les Bleus. Instead, he smacked the ball off the bar and, with it, his team was forced to climb a bigger mountain.

They kept digging away while the rest of us watched. We watched looking for evidence that Real would show us that they deserve to win the final in 90 minutes. It never came. Atletico's brilliant duo, Gabi Fernandez and Juanfran, combined down the right to play in Carrasco for a deserved equalizer. Real struggled in wide areas and only centrally were their best players able to shine - Sergio Ramos, Pepe, Casemiro and Bale. Zinedine Zidane played all three cards when ahead, showing just how frustrated he was despite the lead. Dani Carvajal forced his hand through injury and Karin Benzema was as poor as Ronaldo, but the decision to remove Kroos was mystifying. Poorly taken set pieces by others late in the game only highlighted it more. 

Extra time, as it often is in big games, was played in the shadow of what was to come. A penalty shootout was inevitable and the managers just needed their key players to stay on the field. Bale limped around, but stayed on. Koke wasn't so fortunate. One of Simeone's warriors forced off the battleground wounded and broken, he departed in the 117th minute. He would be missed on the pitch and deeply missed on the piece of paper featuring the five penalty-takers. Against PSV Eindhoven in the last 16, Simeone had chosen Griezmann, Gabi, Koke, Saul and Fernando Torres. Now he had to find another.

Griezmann, unlike Arjen Robben in the 2012 final, stepped up to take the first after a miss during the match and was followed by Gabi and Saul. It was 3-3. After Sergio Ramos scored (of course),  it was Juanfran. It felt unfamiliar and the pressure mounted. Being the fourth penalty-taker of a team hitting second is never easy when everyone else has scored. You miss and your team may not take another one. Ronaldo, who missed the chance to take one in the 2012 shootout for Portugal against Spain as the fifth taker, stepped up for his moment. 

It was his third European Cup and his team wasn't winning any of the three after 90 minutes, with two now finishing on penalties - small margins of success and failure. 

No one knows that more than Atletico, who were a heartbroken unit at the end. Players and fans cried. They have lived in the shadow of the big bully forever in their city. On this night, they couldn't have been much better. They had outplayed an average Real for much of the match and had come close to again winning just one of what Real had 10 of. 

It wasn't to be. Real are again the winners that history will remember. For those who witnessed it, though, do your best to remember the part Atletico played in this game. Real will win this again and again, but the same cannot be said about Atletico. It never felt right to label them as plucky underdogs. No, they were too good for that and so it proved. Led by the magnificent Gabi - the game's best player - they had players like Juanfran, Koke and Diego Godin who could walk into any team in the world. On the biggest stage, they shined again. The future will only tell us if Simeone and these stars can stay together. In an era now dominated by Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, we can only hope they do.