CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL: The sturdy old town of Glasgow braced itself all year for a party, but instead tonight finds itself playing host to a coronation. The Scots have settled for nostalgia rather than mayhem, and Real Madrid, who in their centenary year are one match away from their ninth European crown, are the most regal of guests.
Forty-two years after football and Glasgow swooned before the greatest and most storied of European finals, the Spaniards are back in town. Once again they play German opposition. The Champions League, the epic, sprawling money-spinner, football's big time TV filler, has ground to this: Real Madrid v Bayer Leverkusen.
As an encounter between ancient blue bloods and noveau riche it could scarcely be better. The sides run against the grain of national stereotype: Real are institutional and precise in every step they take here in Glasgow; the Germans, led by the anarchic but brilliant Klaus Toppmoller, have danced through Europe, tweaking the noses of the exalted.
On paper tonight there is only a scant case to be made for the Germans. Looking to become the first side to win the trophy without ever having been champions in their own country, they have gone to some lengths to preserve their right to claim that particular distinction. They threw the league away two years ago (to Bayern Munich) and have tossed it away again this year. They also lost the German Cup final, 4-2, at the weekend. Added to that stutteriness is the difficulty of coping with injury and suspension.
Built with remarkable ingenuity by Toppmoller, Bayer operate with a squad which generally fits comfortably into a minibus. Tonight they will be missing two of their better players: German international Jens Nowotny and the suspended Brazilian Ze Roberto.
For the Spanish, who deploy players in platoons, that would be a small loss; for Bayer it means falling back on the bare bones.
Nowotny, a central defender, has been emblematic of Bayer's spirit and defiance while Ze Roberto, plying the left wing, has been a fruitful source of creativity in a side which has relied on improvisation as much as method to get this far.
The absences put the lion's share of pressure on one of the great successes of Toppmoller's tenure. Michael Ballack, long one of the best midfield talents in Germany, has blossomed this season. His six goals from midfield have been one of the reasons why Bayer's list of scalps this year is so impressive. They topped a group containing Juventus, Deportivo La Coruna and Arsenal, and have since left Liverpool and Manchester United in their wake.
Ballack will be playing his last game for the club tonight; he's on his way to Bayern Munich after the World Cup. Most bookies around Glasgow have him as the short odds favourite to open the scoring for Bayer, should they get off the mark.
And chances are they will. Since arriving in Glasgow yesterday just before lunchtime and dashing headlong for Hampden Park, the Germans have been accentuating the positive.
"With finals you don't know," said the unkempt Toppmoller, "but we try to push players forward, we try to play open football. What got us here is what we will continue to do."
That means pushing players forward in large numbers, moving the ball at speed and then falling back en masse when possession is lost. To that end, in the absence of Nowotny, they can point to the presence of Lucio, the talented Brazilian defender to whom Toppmoller has given the gift of self-discipline. After a wonderful season, he is expected to follow Ballack out the door this summer, but not before one last stand.
If for Bayer this game represents probably the final fling of a talented team playing above themselves for an unfashionable club, for the Spaniards it represents continuity and tradition. Awesome amounts of both.
Real Madrid have become a collection rather than a team, decorating their squad like a family Christmas tree, a shiny bauble here, another there. Yesterday, as they took to the Hampden turf in their black sweat shirts, the locals could only gape; it was impossible to decide where to look. Figo dribbling, Zidane juggling, Roberto Carlos practising free kicks, Raul and Morientes chatting. Oh yeah, and Steve McManaman, mysteriously viable in this exalted company but unable to find a spot on the English plane to Japan.
What inhibits Madrid is their history and the expectations. They have surrendered the Spanish League and Cup this year in a season which was supposed to bring them a glorious treble. Players at Madrid don't evolve organically towards greatness, they are purchased to showcase that quality. Only four Real players are left in white from the final four years ago when Juventus were seen off. The others have been acquired for occasions like this. Bayer's only hope must be that the responsibility gets to the millionaire club.
As such Bayer are playing their cards lightly. Real brought to town a couple of the old gents who played in that 7-3 annihilation of Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960, gloriously completing a run of five European titles on the trot, the greatest club team ever bowing out in the greatest final ever. That team and those memories are sacred.
Toppmoller, a louche figure with an explosion of hair and a plume of cigarette smoke always over him, smiled mischievously yesterday and commented: "Yes, sometimes I have little dreams about that, it crosses my mind that to come here is the chance to get a bit of revenge back for Germany."
Real have assembled a collection of players for whom victory tonight should be well within their compass. They come to Hampden tonight to be crowned kings of Europe. If one genius fails, another steps in and does his work for him. They have even claimed Glasgow as their own city on the basis of that night all those decades ago.
Yet these occasions aren't just about football and the geometry which unfolds in a trainer's imagination; they are about nerves and romance and karma too. The Germans, with their likeable temerity and brilliant improvisational manager, have been written off all season long. Tonight they might just sneak it.
