They’ve only gone and done it again! Real Madrid defeated a much more fancied Liverpool side to win their 14th UCL title, and with that, dealt a blow to the naysayers of “intagibles” in football.

As the tools for analysis in football have become increasingly in-depth, phrases like “They wanted it more” and “It’s just what they do” have become a cause to make fun of the person saying it. Roy Keane has made his whole career in punditry on phrases like this.

However, Real Madrid’s continued dominance in the Champions League, particularly this win, shows that no matter how much one analyzes games and breaks down patterns of play, some intangibles are impossible to account for. Turns out, “It’s just what they do” is not just an example of lazy punditry harking back to the old times, it’s a fact when it comes to Real Madrid in UCL.

The La Liga champions’ UCL campaign would be enough to have the experts of the game pulling their hair out, furiously trying to understand how they did it. It can be easily said that across the 630 minutes of football (two-legged RO16, QF, SF and Final), Real Madrid got dominated for about 600 minutes. Yet, here they stand, as European Champions for the 14th time.

It’s not just the veterans who’ve been there and done that. The jersey of Real Madrid has something special. It gives a boost to your skills when worn on the biggest stage of them all. Camavinga changed games for them, Vinicius Jr capped off a strong season with a winner in the final, and Rodrygo brought them to the final.

In a world of stats, graphs and patterns of play, Real Madrid have come along like a hurricane and made us appreciate the phrase “They just wanted it more” once again, and not as a joke this time.