Real Madrid v Dortmund LIVE: Latest Champions League final build-up

We’re around 90 minutes from kick-off now, so here’s a reminder of how you can watch the final game of the club season.

The final is taking place at Wembley, with kick-off set for 8pm BST. As with all Uefa matches this season, the match will be broadcast live on TNT Sports and can be streamed on the discovery+ app.

If you’re travelling abroad and want to watch major sporting events, you might need a VPN to unblock your streaming app. Our VPN round-up is here to help and includes deals on VPNs in the market. Viewers using a VPN need to make sure that they comply with any local regulations where they are, and also with the terms of their service provider.

Below is everything you need to know ahead of the game.

It may also be the last year of this. From next season’s expanded “Super Champions League”, the knock-out stages will be entirely seeded after the first-round open table. So, while you might well get Real Madrid and Arsenal on the same side of the draw again, it’s unlikely you get all of Madrid, City, Arsenal and Bayern Munich on the same side. Or whoever their equivalents are as the four best teams next season. It’s certainly going to be that bit more difficult for teams who aren’t at that elite level, while representing just another way elite football is curated and engineered.

It is maybe why this final should be relished, in the same way as the Dortmund players are looking at it. If it is to be the last of an era, this match almost represents an extreme. The simple numbers say enough, before you get into bigger issues like finance.

This gap has created a slightly odd build-up to this game for a Champions League final. It doesn’t feel epic, although that obviously won’t be the case for the tens of thousands of Dortmund fans who travel.

As the two Champions League finalists set off for London, the contrasting moods among the squads said enough. For Real Madrid, it’s a sense of duty. There’s excitement about returning to this stage, sure, but also an awareness that this is simply what they do. They go to these games and win them. For Borussia Dortmund, there’s a sense of genuine wonder. Manager Edin Terzic has described it as “a dream”. This is just the third Champions League final in their history and first in 11 years. Many of their players are aware they may never get this chance again.

As rare as this feeling is for Dortmund, though, it actually isn’t that infrequent for this showpiece. The Champions League final may be the biggest global event in club football – and maybe all of sport, after the World Cup final – but it has rarely featured a showdown between the two best teams in Europe. They have tended to come earlier in the knockouts in recent times. The curiosity of that goes back further, through what has been one of the Champions League’s last remaining unpredictabilities. In the 11 years since Dortmund’s last appearance at this stage, there have arguably been six finals where there was one outstanding favourite. This is certainly the second in a row, after Inter Milan’s surprisingly spirited 1-0 defeat to City last season.

This Saturday, Madrid expect to win their 15th Champions League. That would be more than double AC Milan’s seven, the next most successful club, who have been left for dust by the greater winds of football history.

The fear of a similar fate was one of the main factors that drove the Super League in the first place. Perez was scared that the world he had created was growing beyond his control, particularly due to the power of state-owned clubs. 

There were more legitimate frustrations with the outcomes of a series of financial fair play cases involving PSG and Manchester City, where the two clubs were perceived as getting off lightly on four different occasions. The Super League was fundamentally an attempt to co-opt and control the state-owned clubs, but one that is now widely viewed as “an act of desperation” rather than power. It duly ended in humiliating defeat.

That emotion didn’t last, and that wasn’t only because Perez is so brazen he doesn’t feel embarrassment. Madrid have instead turned that desperate defeat into a position of maximum strength.

Florentino Perez couldn’t have it any other way. On Monday, after a Spanish court gave the latest ruling on the Super League case, those in the Real Madrid president’s circle were very quick to insist to everyone that the judgment actually represented a victory for the project. This was despite virtually every legal expert considering the outcome meaningless.

Uefa currently sees no real threat from this iteration of the Super League. You just wouldn’t have guessed that from the response in Spain, where it was roundly portrayed as yet another victory for Perez. This is what he has become used to, his ambitions almost willed into existence.

You only have to look at European football’s current landscape, one that now looks set to be dominated by Real Madrid for a decade. It makes it all the more of a wonder why Perez is seeking to destroy it through the Super League.

Carlo Ancelotti has made two changes to the team that completed the dramatic turnaround against Bayern in the Spanish capital last month.

Goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois replaces Andriy Lunin, who had played every knockout game up to this point, but travelled to London separate to the rest of the squad after a bout of illness.

Aurelien Tchouameni – who was expected to miss the game entirely, but is on the bench – is replaced in midfield by compatriot Eduardo Camavinga.

David Alaba is also on the bench, along with Luka Modric, Eder Militao and semi-final hero Joselu.

As they tend to do on European nights, Real Madrid have announced their starting XI for this evening.

REAL MADRID XI: Courtois, Carvajal, Rudiger, Nacho, Mendy; Valverde, Camavinga, Kroos; Bellingham, Rodrygo, Vini Jr.

SUBS: Lunin, Kepa, Militao, Alaba, Modric, Joselu, Lucas Vasquez, Tchouameni, Ceballos, Fran Garcia, Brahim, Arda Guler.

For some at Dortmund, this is the inevitable end point of a long period harking back to the 2010-13 glory era, with the club constantly rehiring familiar figures. This isn’t necessarily seen as a good thing, either. There is a strong argument it has prevented the club from progressing. They don’t even have a truly great young talent they can sell on right now, a policy that has sustained the club in past seasons.

It does still play into a vision that was created from that period, that frames this entire Champions League campaign. That spell saw Dortmund cast as a model for how to do football right. They had gone toe to toe with far wealthier rivals through emotionally stirring play, all fired by a raucous fanbase who were members of the club.

Such lasting qualities have now afforded them another status as the Champions League nears its climax. They are being cast as the potential “saviours” of the competition.