For a moment there was silence and then there was a small smattering of applause. At the Liverpool end, they were stunned, and they were not alone. The goal that won the European Cup had to be watched twice and they still couldn’t believe it; even the replay on the giant screen didn’t entirely shake them out of it. For the second time, the second Real Madrid goal, they were left wondering whether that had really happened. The first goal was surreal, perhaps the stupidest the European Cup final has seen; the second was sublime, perhaps even the most brilliant. Gareth Bale had been on the pitch for only two minutes when he took flight. High in the Kiev sky, he connected with a wonderful overhead kick.

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Bale ran to the corner and threw himself to the turf, sliding face down. Cristiano Ronaldo followed his team-mates over to the Welshman. On the far touchline Zinedine Zidane could barely believe it. He scored the winning goal in the European Cup final at Hampden Park 16 years ago, a volley that became emblematic. When Ronaldo scored an overhead kick in Turin in the quarter-final this year, Juventus’s fans had stood to applaud. Afterwards, Zidane had been asked about it. “Mine was nicer,” he smiled, a twinkle in his eye. Even he may admit that Bale’s was better, just as even Karim Benzema may admit that his goal was the worst he has scored in his career.

Between them, Bale and Benzema, assisted by Sergio Ramos and Loris Karius, had taken Madrid to a third title in a row, history made. For Bale, it is his fourth title since moving to Spain. It may yet be his last. Asked afterwards about a move to the Premier League he said: “I need to be playing week-in, week-out and that hasn’t happened this season for one reason or another ... I have to sit down in the summer and discuss my future with my agent and take it from there.”

If this was his final game for Madrid, it was some way to bid farewell. Or perhaps it can be a new beginning, a revival. It was, after all, a moment beyond the reach of the plausible, like something out of a comic. An astonishing goal to which he later added with a long shot that slipped through the hands of the Liverpool goalkeeper, who was inconsolable at the end. Karius curled himself into a ball, face hidden in his shirt; Bale stood, arms aloft.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gareth Bale kisses the Champions League trophy after scoring twice in the final. Photograph: Pavel Golovkin/AP

The European Cup final was won and by a moment worthy of any final. Madrid had not always impressed, but the goal certainly did. Until then, and speaking of comic, the final had been marked by two moments. Karius throwing the ball against Benzema’s boot and into the net and before that, Ramos dragging Mohamed Salah to the ground, forcing him out of this final, and seeming to change the game entirely – even if Liverpool did find an equaliser, thus requiring Zidane to call on Bale. So, on he came, to score the decisive second and a third that made it safe. Left out to start with, he was named man of the match. Scorer in Lisbon, successful in the shootout in Milan, he had done it again in the Ukraine. Twice.



Bale’s absence from the starting XI was not out of keeping with his season: it had started on Valentine’s Day, when he was left out against Paris Saint-Germain, an unexpected decision which was soon revealed as no one-off, not least because of the sense that he did too little to rebel when he came on, accused of disengaging. In the second leg he was again left on the bench. In Turin it was the same and, although he started the second leg, he was withdrawn at half-time, with the team 2-0 down. He withdrew at full-time too, while his team-mates celebrated.

“I had to do something,” Zidane said afterwards. But, Bale wondered, did it have to be that? There had been no explanation, no conversation; he and Zidane did not talk.

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Against Bayern Munich there was more of the same. Madrid had made it to the final but he had played only 99 of 540 minutes in the knockout phases. And yet, his performance in Villarreal last week, widely assumed to be a dress rehearsal, the gathering speed and the specifics of Liverpool, had brought him back into a focus, a candidate to be included from the start for the final. Instead, it was the same XI than began in Cardiff in last year’s final, Benzema beginning ahead of him; then, Bale was injured, here there was no excuse. No consolation, either – that would come later, and how.



When Madrid’s subs came out to warm up, the Welshman did not join them. That is not so abnormal, but as a staging of his separateness it is still striking. He too had become resigned to the probability of a departure. Bale, though, knew that there might always be a chance, that at least he could go the right way. Liverpool knew that Madrid could change the game from the bench in a way that they could not. A couple of months ago it had been suggested to him that for all that he had not been playing, for all that he had thought his time at Madrid was ending, and that much as he probably would not start in Kiev, he would come on and win the final.



And so it proved. Even if he had believed it, he would not have imagined it like this. An overhead kick, a long shot that Karius dropped into the net, and a fourth European Cup. No Briton has ever won more.