top 10 moments of La Décima (X)

More than two months have passed since Real Madrid won La Décima in Lisbon, in a game that was equal parts agonizing and exhilarating.  At times, I still have trouble believing that La Décima is finally ours, after having waited 12 long years.

And now, with just several days to go before the Supercopa, where we’ll take on Sevilla, the 2014 Europa League winners, I just wanted to share some of my favorite moments from the final.  I’m sure you will remember all of them, but it’s always nice to take a look back and relive that excitement and joy once again as we prepare to cheer on our team and start the new season.

Although the moments aren’t in any particular order, I wanted to start with the goals because they are what brought us the title.  Atleti scored late in the first half, and it took us until the third minute of injury time in the second half to tie the game, courtesy of a header from Sergio Ramos, who continued his scoring streak in the CL.

At that point, there were only two minutes left (five minutes of injury time had been added), so I’m sure there were some who had given up in despair by this point, but as you well know, we can never count this team out.

Sergio’s goal was followed by a flurry of three more goals in the extra time, starting with Gareth Bale’s winner, off a sublime run from Ángel di María.

I think this outpouring of pure joy was what all of us madridistas felt in this moment.

Side note: the two protagonists of that photo above recently spoke to Adidas, which was also taking a look back at La Décima.

Gareth Bale listens to the audio of his goal (and the other ones) and talks about winning La Décima.  He says, “just watching the pictures there, it’s incredible, you kind of forget how great it was, it’s a surreal feeling which you don’t get often in football, and yeah, to be able to look back on it is a great memory.”  He adds that he felt “satisfaction, relief a bit as well I think, all the emotions come out when you’re in such a big tournament, the hard work that everybody put in that year, and the support we had from the fans and everything was incredible and yeah, it just topped off a great season.”

For his part, Álvaro Arbeloa says, “there was no better way to win the Champions League as we did.  It’s obvious that we suffered a lot, in a game we had waited for all of our lives.  The moment we saw Sergio score the goal… I believe that even though we had just tied the match, we knew that we had just been given another opportunity, the opportunity to win it.  It was a unique and unforgettable moment, a feeling that will never be repeated, and as I said, I don’t think there was a better way to win the Champions, La Décima, than the way we did.”

Back to the post… the cherry on the cake was Marcelo’s goal…

… followed by Cristiano’s conversion of the penalty.

What a game!   Going from down one goal with two minutes left to a three-goal advantage 30 minutes later… only Real Madrid could throw us from deepest of depths and despair onto cloud nine.