After winning their sixth Champions League in the last 10 years few months back, Madrid are dominating European football like never seen before.
They’re demolishing the record books and it’s incredible to watch how they win matches and tournaments. Today, we will explore the five biggest reasons why this era of Real Madrid from 2014 to now should be considered the best club side of all time.
5) Other “Greatest Clubs Ever”
Who else are the greatest club sides ever? So let’s discuss which club sides are generally considered the greatest club team of all time.
There’s the Ajax side of the mid-60s to 70s with superstar player Johan Cruyff , where football tactics was revolutionized and they won three European trophies in a row.
The Liverpool dynasty of the mid-70s to mid-80s under manager Bob Paisley with Kenny Dalglish as the superstar player. They won seven league titles and four European trophies.
Then there’s AC Milan side of the late 80s, under Arrigo Sacchi with players like Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and Marco van Basten. During that era, they won back-to-back European trophies and three league titles.
Pep Guardiola, Lionel Messi’s Barcelona era of 2008 to 11 has to be on the list. They rewrote the modern-day tactics works, winning three consecutive league titles and two European titles.
The Real Madrid side of the 1950s under Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas. In that era, they won an unprecedented five European trophies in a row and it was this side that made Real Madrid into the club it is today. It can be confidently said that this gave them the European Championship DNA.
Then you finally have this current Real Madrid side. They go above the rest because they’ve won six European trophies. Between 2015 and 2018, they won the UEFA Champions League 3 times in a row. That’s magnificent.
4) Their Unmatched Achievements
So in total, Real Madrid have won six European trophies in the last 10 years, plus four league titles. Before their period of domination started in 2014, they hadn’t won the European trophy since 2002. They chased the famed La Decima, the 10th title for a long time and they finally broke that duck in 2014.
Barcelona would win the following year in 2015 then Real Madrid would go on to win the European trophy in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Three in a row under manager Zinedine Zidane. This feat alone was unheard of in a modern game to win back to back to back Champions League. It was just something impossible to do considering how competitive European football had become.
There was already a discussion on “are they the greatest side ever”? But due to their lack of dominance in the league before 2015, that discussion was put on hold.
Now, after the three UCL’s in a row, the greatest ever player, Cristiano Ronaldo, would leave and people thought that this dominance was over. Surprisingly, then three years later, in 2022, they would win the European trophy again. In 2024, they’ve won it again, which makes it six European trophies in 10 years. They’ve broken all kinds of records, including the 1950 side of Di Stefano where they won five in a row.
To put it in context, in the last 10 years, Real Madrid have won more Champions Leagues than Barcelona have won in the whole of their history. They’ve also equaled the amount that Liverpool and Bayern Munich have won in all of their history. In just in the last 10 years, Madrid have won that much.
3) Real Madrid’s Key Players
Moving on, let’s look at the key players. We know the obvious legends of this team. You have Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema, Sergio Ramos, Marcelo, Vinicius Junior. Let’s discuss a lesser known star who is their right back, Dani Carvajal and the record he’s broken.
They are the only five players in history to have won six European titles. However, Carvajal has the distinguished accomplishment of being the only player from this Madrid side to have been in the starting 11 in all six of those finals and the wins. That’s because Toni Kroos was a sub in his first European title win with Bayern Munich. Nacho was an unused sub for most of his title wins and Modric was only a sub in the latest win in 2024.
So Carvajal has started all six of the finals and won them all. It seemed poetic for Carvajal to score the winner in the latest win against Dortmund.
In those 10 years of dominance, the six championships were split between three for Ancelotti and three for Zidane. Both managers played a similar counter-attacking style of football. They let the key player shine instead of hammering down them with tactics.
Due to the lack of distinctive style of football, fans have been reluctant to call them the greatest side but Madrid have shown that their mentality, resiliency and their will to win will be the lasting legacy of this team.
2) Mentality Monsters
Speaking of mentality, this is another reason this Real Madrid side are the greatest club side of all time. It’s important to know that Real Madrid weren’t always this great. Winning European trophies was never a guarantee for them. It’s only this group of players that have brought back this insane winning mentality.
So they first won five in a row in 1955, all the way to 1960. Madrid won their sixth European title in 1966 but after that, they went 32 years without winning the European trophy. They finally won it in 1998, they won two more after that in 2000 and 2002, with players like Roberto Carlos, Morientes and Raul starting all three finals.
Madrid, after that, struggled to win again. Even with Galactico players like Zidane, Ronaldo, Figo and Beckham. Madrid had to watch their rivals, Barcelona, win three European titles while they won zero in that period.
Finally in 2014, with this new crop of players led by Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos and Luka Modric, they finally captured La Decima. Mentality and resiliency is how they won most of their trophies.
They played a blistering counter-attacking football, they scored a lot of goals but they never knew how to give up. In a UCL Final in 2014, they had to rely on a 90th minute header by Sergio Ramos to take it to extra time. In 2016 they won on penalties in 2022 they had the most fortunate run where Benzema scored an unlikely hat trick. He was also scoring last minute goals against PSG and Man City to take them to the final. In the final, Liverpool dominated them but they managed to scrape a 1-0 victory and that’s same for 2024 final where Dortmund dominating the first half but they found their way to win again.
1) Greatness in Transition
It’s beautiful how they’ve done the transition with this new crop of players. The Madrid side are scary when you look at the prospect of their future now.
The last 10 years where they won six European trophies they had two iterations of teams where the first batch had Ronaldo, Bale, Sergio Ramos, Varane. They left and fans thought the era was done but Madrid was so clever. They kept Benzema, Modric, Kroos and many other players who had the winning mentality.
Then Madrid decided to get a new crop of players to get the old guys to teach them this winning mentality. So in came the likes of Vinicius Jr, Tchouameni, Camavinga, Courtois, etc. This new crop of players were part of the transition and they were taught the winning mentality
This new crop of players has the same winning mentality as the old crop did. The likes of Bellingham, Vinicius Jr, Rodrigo will be carrying on the torch and to make it even scarier Kylian Mbappe the best player in the world has just joined this team.
It’s going to be hard to see how this current team of young talents don’t carry on dominating like the way they are.
This Real Madrid side have the mentality the resiliency, the teamwork, the DNA to win and with the achievements they’ve done, they should be considered the greatest club side of all time.