Getting high on Magic Realism

We knew what was going to happen, we8217;d waited for this moment for weeks. Yet when it did, we still had to rub our bleary eyes 8212; it...

We knew what was going to happen, we8217;d waited for this moment for weeks. Yet when it did, we still had to rub our bleary eyes 8212; it was past midnight, after all 8212; and convince ourselves this was for Real.

In brushing aside Roma 3-0 at Rome8217;s Olympic Stadium, adding insult to injury was confirmation of that widely held notion that Real Madrid are on a different planet. Sublime touches, strong running off the ball, prescient back-heels consigned their opponents to chasing shadows.

And Roma, remember, had in their ranks the following: Walter Samuel, Christian Panucci, Vicenzo Montella, Brazil8217;s regular and stand-in skippers Emerson and Cafu, and Marco Delvecchio. No pushovers, you8217;d agree, yet they were swatted aside as you might swat a fly. Before the match, Real8217;s players 8212; a large number of them Catholic 8212; had an audience with the Pope. If there was one team that needed divine intercession, though, it was the home side.

Racing up and down the left, Roberto Carlos reduced his opposite number, Cafu, to 90 minutes in the wings. In the middle, Zidane was pulling the strings, stroking the ball around with his trademark feline grace. Up front, Raul and the unheralded Guti prowled around, waiting for the killer pass or the stray loose ball. And Luis Figo showed he8217;d shaken off his indifferent world cup form; he was everywhere, now roving down the right, his preferred area, now popping up on the left, linking one moment with Roberto Carlos, the next with Salgado.

At the back, the twin rocks of Hierro and Helguera kept Roma from prying too deep; when they did, the amazingly agile Casillas 8212; is he still only 21? 8212; refused to let the ball go farther.

This is, at the risk of overstatement, a team in its pomp and Ronaldo didn8217;t play yesterday. As they taunted, teased and toyed with their opponents, they displayed a swagger, an arrogance, a supreme confidence that is witnessed very rarely in sport. You saw it in the West Indies cricket team of the 1970s and 80s, best typified in Viv Richards. You saw it in the bombast and blah of Muhammad Ali, the little rhymes with which he would mock his opponents, the self-aggrandisement that turned a sportsman into a superstar.

At one level, yesterday8217;s was an unequal battle. Roma have to focus on the bread and butter of Serie A as much as on the champagne and strawberries of the Champions League. For Real, the playing fields of Europe are all that matter; that is how and why they were a shambles at home last season while waltzing through the Champions League.

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This doesn8217;t, of course, mean that UEFA should immediately FedEx the Champions League trophy to the Bernabeau Stadium. Football is still, happily, a game where anything can happen. Where a team of itinerant Israelis can dream of beating their heroes of Manchester United at Old Trafford.

That is the magic, the charm, of the beautiful game. And, for 90 minutes last night, Real gave us a dose of Magic Realism.