<\/p>\n

Author: Mark Szczuka<\/p>\n

Photos by Stephen Gormley (Red Eye)<\/p>\n

Real Madrid secured their 3^{rd<\/sup>\u00a0<\/span>Champions League Final in a row, and 4th<\/sup>\u00a0<\/span>in 5 seasons, with a 3-1 win over Liverpool in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. It all really came down in the end to 4 key events:<\/p>\n}

\n
1. Liverpool\u2019s and English Premiership\u2019s top scorer this season, Mo Salah, being taken off injured after less than 30 minutes with a shoulder injury following a challenge from Sergio Ramos<\/li>\n
2. A horrendous goalkeeping blunder by Liverpool\u2019s German keeper Loris Karius who threw the ball out straight into the path of Benzema to score early in the 2^{nd<\/sup>\u00a0<\/span>half<\/li>\n}
3. An amazing over-head kick goal by Gareth Bale (very similar to the one scored by Ronaldo in the previous year\u2019s final, which coincidentally came within the same 63^{rd<\/sup>\u00a0<\/span>minute of the match!)<\/li>\n}
4. Another awful mistake by keeper Karius who failed miserably to punch a speculative shot by Bale and instead let the ball through into the goal<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

   Lots of questions followed the Final:<\/p>\n

   \n
   1. Will Salah recover in time to make the Egypt team for the World Cup in Russia?<\/li>\n
   2. Will Bale stay at Real Madrid?<\/li>\n
   3. Will Karius stay at Liverpool?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      One question surely not raised by anyone following the final though was about the future of Madrid\u2019s manager Zidane. Yet, just 5 days after the final, Zizou shocked the footballing world by announcing his immediate resignation. The reason he gave was that he felt the team needed a fresh approach in order to continue their dominance in Europe and to get back to being dominant in Spain, following Barca\u2019s double La Liga and Copa del Rey title victories this year.<\/p>\n\n

      [columns]<\/span><\/p>\n

      [column size=”1\/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”5″ cats=”1208″ heading=”UEFA Champions League” heading_type=”timeline” \/][\/column]<\/span><\/p>\n

      [column size=”1\/2″][blog type=”timeline” posts=”5″ cats=”998″ heading=”International Competitions” heading_type=”timeline” \/][\/column]<\/span><\/p>\n

      [\/columns]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Author: Mark Szczuka Photos by Stephen Gormley (Red Eye) Real Madrid secured their 3rd\u00a0Champions League Final in a row, and 4th\u00a0in 5 seasons, with a 3-1 win over Liverpool in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. It all really came down in the end to 4 key events: Liverpool\u2019s and English Premiership\u2019s top scorer this<\/p>\n

      Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,355,527,207,59,2,12,42,62],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277879,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186182\/revisions\/277879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prostinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}