Real Madrid always find a way, they say, and somehow they did – all the way to a third consecutive European Cup final. For so long, they had the Bavarians at the gates, the Bernabéu gripped by fear, but when a long, wild, tense and often inexplicable match was over and the siege subsided at last, there they were, still standing. A goal down after three minutes, Real were not safe until the very end but it is they, not Bayern Munich , who made it to Kiev. The world’s biggest club, 12 times winners of this competition, finalists for the fourth time in five years, are also its greatest survivors. “The European Cup releases special powers in Real Madrid,” Toni Kroos had said; it does something to their opponents too. For Bayern, 39 shots over two legs proved less decisive than three gifts, each greater than the last. This time it was Corentin Tolisso’s back pass and Sven Ulreich’s moment of panic that cost them, an error that lent credence to Franz Beckenbauer’s suggestion t...