Statistics show that a team winning all six group matches does not always go on to lift the Champions League come season’s end. For more than seventy minutes, Real Madrid appeared to know this too well, pressing for victory with solid rhythm. In Berlin, Joselu stood firm, scoring twice to erase the hosts’ opening goal and earn the local fans a triumph. The brace added to a season tally of eight goals, three of them in the Champions League, matching Rodrygo and just one behind Bellingham in the scoring chart.
Real Madrid sits at the heart of Europe’s premier club competition, a stage where the Blancos rarely shy away from display. In Berlin, Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo provided the spark that helped Madrid weather a tense period. The match carried a sense that it mattered more for the opposition than for the Chamartín club, which had already clinched top spot in the group in recent days.
Ancelotti set his team up with a clear message: this is a special tournament and it deserves high-quality football. He named a starting XI that included six Spaniards—an alignment not seen since May 2019. Kepa started in goal, narrowly denying Behrens early and then again soon after. Madrid needed ten minutes to click, with Bellingham probing through the channels, linking up with Rodrygo, Ceballos and Modric. Yet the encounter soon took a more vertical turn, and Joselu’s header from Fran García’s cross clattered against the crossbar, signaling two distinct attacking avenues for Madrid.—they were able to mix pace with precision.
0-1 to 1-0
Madrid controlled the tempo and unsettled Union Berlin, but the finishing touch eluded them for a while. The breakthrough came to life through a bit of fortune as Joselu nodded home, following a moment when Modric’s penalty was saved after a handball deemed accidental. The misfortune turned into momentum for Madrid, who had already seen penalties denied by a combination of sharp goalkeeping and stubborn defense. The team then faced a flare of pressure when a long throw from the German keeper found its way to Nacho, and with Alaba and Volland on the receiving end, Berlin briefly grabbed the lead just before halftime. The stage was set for a dramatic second half.
Carletto shifted tactics, moving Kroos into a pivot role to stabilize the middle and encourage rebuilding play. Early skirmishes near Kepa’s area suggested Berlin would press again, but Madrid pressed back with disciplined structure. The hosts’ defense, particularly with Alaba and Fran García, creaked at times, but Berlin could not fully capitalize. The most visible attacking threat came from Bellingham and Rodrygo, while Ronnow did well to repel the repeated Madrid flurries. The 2023-24 Madrid squad, while elegant, did not exhibit the same overwhelming dominance of previous campaigns, even as the team leaned on Bellingham’s poise.
Joselu double
Carletto exploited the German left-back Rousillon to craft a more dynamic approach, asking Rodrygo to play a bit wider on the right. That shift produced Madrid’s equalizer, with Joselu meeting a precise Brazilian cross and guiding the ball past the goalkeeper. The equalizer lifted Madrid’s belief and tested Berlin’s resolve—was Madrid ready to push on, or would fatigue become a factor as minutes piled up? The question hung over the game as Madrid balanced star names with the need to manage minutes as the season wore on.
As the coach weighed his options, Joselu struck again with a powerful header, surging Madrid ahead and reinforcing the attacker’s growing influence. The goal signified a turning point: the striker’s presence in the box was decisive and illustrative of the team’s ability to convert chances when it mattered most. Yet the match remained tense, with Berlin pressing to restore parity and Madrid clinging to the lead. A late cross from Ceballos found the back of the net in the 88th minute, sealing a dramatic end to a hard-fought contest. Madrid finished the night well in control, even as questions lingered about consistency and depth across the squad. The result left Madrid facing the necessity to finish second in the group, with Copenhagen, PSV, or Inter in the mix for the path forward in the competition’s later stages, depending on the final group outcomes. The match underscored the delicate balance Madrid must strike between star power and collective edge in Europe’s toughest league. (Match analysis attribution: field report from the stadium observers.)