Real Madrid v Dortmund LIVE: Champions League final score, result and reaction after Vinicius Jr caps win

These men could all be key tonight.

The stage is certainly set.

Will we see Champions League trophy number 15 for Real, or a well-earned second win for one of European football’s cult teams?

Dortmund and Real have met 14 times in this competition, with their first match coming in the semi-finals of the 1997/98 edition.

Madrid ran out 2-0 aggregate winners on their way to winning their seventh title (and their first in 32 years).

Perhaps the most famous meeting between the two sides was in the semi-finals of 2012/13, where an unfancied Dortmund side – containing the likes of Lewandowski, Reus and Gotze – caused delirium at the Westfalenstadion when they beat Real 4-1. Dortmund, at the time managed by Jurgen Klopp, reached the final despite a 2-0 loss in the Spanish capital.

Madrid didn’t have to wait long for their revenge though, with a rematch coming in the next season’s quarter-finals. Goals from Ronaldo, Bale and Isco gave Madrid a 3-0 win at the Bernabeu, which they hung on to in the second leg before beating arch-rivals Atletico Madrid in the 2014 final.

Overall, Real Madrid have six wins, Dortmund have three, and five games have ended in a draw.

Real Madrid’s social team have taken the opportunity to show off. Here’s a video of some of the highlights of their 14 Champions League wins.

Love them or hate them, there’s some exceptional stories in there, from Zidane’s wonder goal at Hampden Park in 2002 to the Ronaldo-era three-peat.

Madrid’s story is an entirely different tale to the German club. The established kings of Europe won the first five iterations of this competition in a row, and have enjoyed a constant stream of the world’s most talented players from 1955 to 2024. From Alfredo di Stefano to Cristiano Ronaldo and now Kylian Mbappe, Europe’s most successful story is destined for more enthralling chapters.

Los Blancos have won the competition 14 times – twice as many as their nearest rivals, AC Milan – and are the world’s most valuable sports team, with yearly revenues around 850m euros. The era of Florentino Perez, which began in the early 2000s, has brought with it unprecedented success and a series of ever-present Galacticos. Though the days of Ronaldo, Benzema and Kroos are coming to an end, we might simply be seeing the dawn of the Mbappe-Bellingham-Vini Jr. era.

But despite their successes and beloved players, recent actions mean the club itself has polarised neutrals outside of the Spanish capital. Perez and Madrid have consistently contributed to the increased monopolisation of the game, having also been at the forefront of the proposed European Super League.

So, as the two sides meet at the home of English football, their past, present and futures couldn’t look more different.

The odds are heavily stacked against Dortmund, but there’ll be plenty of support for the underdogs, as well as from neutral fans of Real’s roster of proven and upcoming superstars.

Bellingham and the Madrid squad are looking decidedly more dapper than today’s opponents.

Dortmund look very relaxed too though.

And here’s a highlight of that sole Champions League win in 1997 – a lovely lob from Lars Ricken, who was 20 years old at the time and scored within seconds of coming off the bench!

In the modern day, a fierce rivalry with Bayern Munich, widepsread respect for the club’s way of operating and a host of young talent has contributed to the club’s stellar reputation on the continent.

These factors all came together in the 2012/13 season, when Jurgen Klopp’s entertaining team – which contained the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Ilkay Gundogan, World Cup winner Mario Gotze and retiring legend Marco Reus – reached the Champions League final thanks to famous wins over Malaga and Real Madrid.

They met their arch-rivals at Wembley in perhaps the most important Der Klassiker to date, with Arjen Robben giving the Bavarians a 2-1 win.

11 years on, Marco Reus and co. will be hoping to expel the ghosts of 2013 and give their fans decidely different memories of the English capital.

DORTMUND XI: Kobel; Ryerson, Hummels, Schlotterbeck, Maatsen; Sabitzer, Can; Sancho, Brandt, Adeyemi; Fullkrug.

SUBS: Meyer, Lotka, Nmecha, Reus, Sule, Ozcan, Haller, Wolf, Moukoko, Malen, Watjen, Bynoe-Gittens.

So with all the talk of a potential mismatch, a one-sided final or a general gulf between the two clubs, how do each side’s past compare?

Borussia Dortmund’s domestic and European success has made them comfortably the second biggest club in Germany, with eight German league titles and five DfB Pokal wins.

But their only successful Champions League campaign came in 1996/97, when a team containing Ballon d’Or winner Matthias Sammer and former Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert managed to upset Juventus in Munich.

Dortmund finished fifth in the Bundesliga this season, and with Real Madrid winning LaLiga, it is the biggest gap between the league position of finalists since the foundation of the Champions League in 1992.

Only two previous finals match it: Bayern Munich vs Valencia in 2001 and Bayern vs Chelsea in 2012. First against fifth and second against sixth, respectively.