Manchester City chief executive Ferran Soriano has claimed that Real Madrid were “lucky” to win the 2021/22 Champions League.
Carlo Ancelotti’s Real side won the competition for the 14 th time for the club’s history and for the fifth time in eight years last month with a 1-0 win in the final over Liverpool in Paris, having been on the brink of exiting the competition in each of their round of 16, quarter-final and semi-final ties.
In the group stages, Real lost their opening group game to Moldovan minnows Sheriff Tiraspol but did go on to win their group stage campaign. With less than 30 minutes to go, Real were 2-0 down in their round of 16 tie with Paris Saint-Germain but came back to win 3-2 after a Karim Benzema hat-trick.
Late comebacks were a trend continued in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, scoring 80 th and 96 th minute goals to beat Chelsea 5-4 on aggregate and two 90 th minute goals and 95 th minute winner against Man City in the semi-finals.
In the final win over Liverpool, where Vinicius Jr scored the only goal of the tie, Liverpool dominated the game but Real got the winner despite having just three attempts to the Reds’ 23.
Speaking on Real’s triumph, City chief Soriano has claimed that Madrid could have easily exited the competition on multiple occasions but were fortunate in their quest to lift Europe’s elite club competition.
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“The Champions League is a trophy that we want, but we know that it is subject to a bit of luck and we are not obsessed,” Soriano told the Dr. Football podcast.
“People talk today about the success that Madrid have had in recent years, and I think it would be fair to say that they were a bit lucky. Perhaps I could say that they deserved to lose against PSG, against Chelsea, against us or against Liverpool.”
However, while Soriano felt that Ancelotti and his side were incredibly fortunate to win the competition for the sixth time in his career as a player and a manager, he did add that Real deserved to win more European Cups during the 1980s, with the Spanish side going 32 years between 1966 and 1998 without winning the competition.
“People don't remember that in the 80s and 90s [Real] had a fantastic team, one of the best in history, with [Emilio] Butragueno and La Quinta, and they could not win it,” Soriano added.
“Milan eliminated them every year. So they were somewhat lucky now, but they were also very unlucky for years.”
While City have never won the competition, they did reach the final in the 2020/21 campaign, losing 1-0 to English rivals Manchester City in Porto, Portugal.
