The Champions League final is here. You can catch all the coverage across CBS, Paramount+, CBS Sports Golazo Network and CBS Sports Network.
Who’s Playing
- Real Madrid @ Borussia Dortmund
- Current Records: Real Madrid 8-4-0, Borussia Dortmund 7-3-2
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How To Watch
- When: Saturday, June 1, 2024 at 3 p.m. ET
- Where: Wembley Stadium
- TV: CBS
- Follow: CBS Sports App
- Online Streaming: Paramount+
What to Know
Don’t miss CBS Sports Golazo Network’s Morning Footy, now in podcast form! Our crew brings you all the news, views, highlights and laughs you need to follow the Beautiful Game in every corner of the globe, every Monday-Friday all year long.
The Champions League is back! After a short break, the Final is ready to kick off on Saturday. Having advanced past the Semifinal, Real Madrid will now face off against Borussia Dortmund at 3:00 p.m. ET on June 1st at Wembley Stadium. Real Madrid’s last seven Champions League matchups have been decided by no more than a goal, so don’t be surprised if it’s a close one.
Real Madrid is headed into the contest without a loss and will look to keep things rolling. They had just enough and edged Bayern Munich out 2-1. Real Madrid better thank their lucky stars for the performance of Joselu, as he scored both goals for his team.
Meanwhile, Borussia Dortmund had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 1.5 goals), and they went ahead and made it three on May 7th. They never let PSG onto the board and left with a 1-0 victory. That’s two games straight that Borussia Dortmund has won by just one goal.
Real Madrid’s win bumped their record up to 8-4-0. As for Borussia Dortmund, they have been performing well recently as they’ve won four of their last five matches, which provided a nice bump to their 7-3-2 record in this tournament.
After a long road, there’s only one game left to play to crown the Champions League Champion. Come back here after the game to find expert analysis of the match and other Champions League content.
Odds
Real Madrid is a huge favorite against Borussia Dortmund, according to the latest Champions League odds, being -163 to win.
The over/under is 2.5 goals.
Other statistics we like
- The problem with defensive stats is that some of the best work done out of possession involves stopping any meaningful action from taking place. How often does the opposition not hit a long ball into the channel because they know that Virgil van Dijk or William Saliba are going to bully their center forward? Still, there is a world for celebrating the active side of defending: hitting your opponent firmly but fairly, booting the ball, reading the pass before it comes. Enter Mats Hummels, who leads the Champions League in tackles, interceptions and clearances with the second-most ball recoveries. Aaah, you say, but that’s just because he has logged the most minutes in the tournament. Adjust your numbers to per 90, however, and the Borussia Dortmund center back still leads the way for tackles, ranks third for interceptions and sixth for clearances. His season has been a masterclass in busy defending.
- Shooting goals added (SGA) is one of those curious metrics. Assessing the pre and post-shot xG values, it does not necessarily tell you all that much more meaningfully over a long timescale than xG itself might. The best strikers are not necessarily the ones who hit the corners every time — Heung-min Son might say otherwise though — but the ones who keep getting themselves in shooting positions. Still over the relatively brief lifecycle of a Champions League campaign, SGA does serve a different purpose, highlighting the men whose yikes games had an outsized impact on the tournament. Oh Lautaro Martinez (34 shots, two goals, 5.13 xG, -1.83 SGA), if only you’d kept your Serie A form up in the big leagues, there might have been another Champions League final on the cards. Fabian Ruiz, we really need to get you some heading practice.
- Are we seeing a new post-pressing approach at the top of the European game? Even Borussia Dortmund are no longer the practitioners of Jurgen Klopp’s heavy metal, returning to the Wembley promised land thanks to tight defensive lines and immaculate off-ball shape. Manchester City’s 92.4% pass completion is the highest in five years of Champions League football. Real Madrid’s 90.1% ranks third while PSG, Bayern Munich and Feyenoord were among those to be notably more accurate than in previous years. For the competition as a whole pass completion was at 83.6%, in pre-COVID 2019-20 it was somewhat lower at 82.1%. Similarly, this year sides have won the ball in the middle third on 22.6 occasions per game. Five years ago that was 24.3.
- Perhaps that is partly explained by just how long everyone is hanging about. Twenty players have made more than 150 appearances in the history of UEFA club competitions. Four of them — Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric, Thomas Muller and Ivan Rakitic — joined that club this season. With all those games coming in the Champions League, Muller now ranks level with the ageless Xavi Hernandez on 151 Champions League appearances, just one ahead of his compatriot Toni Kroos, who will retire from club football after Saturday’s final. For now, at least that means that of the 15 players with the most Champions League games ever, 10 are currently still active. Eight of the top 15 have been managed by Carlo Ancelotti. This era of football has gone on!
