Outside of events like the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics, and the European Championships, no soccer match garners as much attention as the UEFA Champions League.
The Champions League Final will be contested on Saturday, June 1, and it often pits two big names in the world of soccer against one another, such as Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and AC Milan.
The 2024 UEFA Champions League Final has one of those in Spanish giant Real Madrid, which is the most successful club in UCL history. They’ve won the Champions League a record 14 times, which is twice as many as anyone else, and Madrid has won the title five times over the last decade alone. They also have the most Final appearances with 17, and when they get there, Real Madrid is usually victorious as they’ve won each of their last eight Final appearances.
However, the other half of the UCL Final plays the role more of a David than another Goliath. Madrid will face German club Borussia Dortmund. They have won the Champions League once before (1997) and have one other Final appearance in team history, but Dortmund is seen more as a club that’s a stepping stone for great players rather than a final destination. The likes of Erling Haaland, Robert Lewandowski, Christian Pulisic, and Jude Bellingham—who now plays for Madrid—have had stints at Dortmund only to leave for greener pastures.
Not only are the teams’ respective histories, and the way in which the soccer world views them, far apart, but the roads they each traveled to reach the Final are also vastly different. Real Madrid won their domestic league, La Liga, in dominant fashion. They scored the most goals, allowed the fewest goals, and were 10 points clear of runner-up and rival FC Barcelona. Meanwhile, Dortmund staggered to a fifth-place finish in their domestic league, the German Bundesliga. They went undefeated through their first nine matches but then failed to win even half of their remaining 25 contests, finishing a distant 27 points behind league champion Bayer Leverkusen. The fifth-place finish was Dortmund’s worst since the 2014–15 season.
The clubs’ Champions League journeys follow a somewhat similar script, as Madrid was perfect during the group stage, winning all six of their matches. They remained perfect through the knockout round, including dethroning the reigning Champions League champions in Manchester City in the quarterfinals round and then defeating Bayern Munich, 4–3, on aggregate in the semifinals.
As for Dortmund, their path was much rockier to reach Saturday’s Final as it went 3–2–1 in the UCL group stage, giving them the fewest points (11) of any team that won their group. They even suffered a defeat in knockout play, falling to Atletico Madrid in the first leg of the quarterfinals. But they managed to overcome that loss and then posted a pair of clean-sheet victories over PSG in the semis to notch their third trip to the UCL Final.
While Bellingham will be the single player who draws most of the attention as he transferred from Dortmund to Madrid last summer, lots of attention will also be on a pair of Madrid players aiming for history. Midfielder Luka Modric and defender Dani Carvajal have each won five Champions League titles. A Saturday victory would tie them with Paco Gento for the most wins in Champions League/European Cup history, after Gento won his half-dozen with Real Madrid from 1956–66.
Modric talked about being in this position again, which may seem like old hat for Real Madrid but is a testament to their preparation and mindset during the eight-month journey from the first UCL game to the final one.
For Dortmund, their key players are the backbone of their defense: goalkeeper Gregor Kobel and defender Mats Hummel. The former leads the UCL in both saves and clean sheets, while the latter leads the Champions League in both tackles and ball recoveries. In the attacking third, forward Niclas Fullkrug leads the team in UCL goals this year after leading the Bundesliga in goals in the 2022–23 season.
Saturday’s match will be the fifth-ever European Cup/Champions League Final between Spanish and German clubs. The nations have split the previous four, so a bit of national pride is at stake for many in this rubber match. The 2024 UEFA Champions League Final will be held at Wembley Stadium in London, England, with a 3 p.m. EST kickoff on Saturday.
