20 years of the Ninth of Madrid, the "liberation" of Zidane and the volley of a generation: "Bad pass? The pass was perfect!"

• Benzema-Vinicius 65 goals and 35 assists: "Time has helped them"

• The lawn mower An exuberant Madrid

9:30 p.m.

on

.

O'clock.

Stadium

, in

,

.

between

Bayer

and

.

"I started the play!" exclaims to

, between laughs,

, goalkeeper that night.

"At that moment someone else would have decided to give it a long shot, but I played it short towards

", he recounts.

The Cantabrian central gave it to

, which was listed on the left wing, as always, a few meters in front of the midfield line.

There began a succession of touches, all with his left foot, which led to the best goal in the history of the

.

Solari

kneaded the ball with the outside under pressure from Schneider and watched Roberto Carlos run over German

.

There was the ball.

"I felt the German coming and

. Everyone says that the pass was bad,

! It would be bad if I had to control it.

hit first,

", laughs Roberto Carlos with this newspaper.

Madrid's '3' arrived before his rival, a few meters from the baseline, but the only option to continue the play was to lift the ball above Sebescen's 190 centimeters.

He did so.

A ball to the sky of Glasgow that came down like a missile to the left of

.

The Frenchman, unmarked at the edge of the area, saw the ball descend, planted his right foot on the grass and moved his body to the left side to then push it to the right just at the right moment.

tock

His left foot came up at a perfect ninety-degree angle and he flew to impact with the ball, which rocketed into

's top corner from his boot.

They were

, with black leather, a red tongue and three white stripes on the toe.

The shoes of the soccer planet at the beginning of the 2000s and 13 seconds of a play for history.

"A goal like that? In a final?"

"Take, take!"

yelled

in perfect Spanish as he ran towards the band.

That, a small shake of his right fist and a grin to the ground was holding him.

"

", confesses Roberto Carlos, who reflects on the figure of the '5': "

has been an example as a person. He has been famous for his way of being,

."

A measured celebration for an unexpected goal, although not for everyone.

"When the ball left Roberto's boot and was already falling, on the bench we already

.

We weren't that surprised, really.

He scored authentic goals with the left.

People are surprised, but

in this newspaper

. César was not struck by Zidane's idea either: "It was no coincidence.

.

Just the fact of considering that pitch... It's incredible." On the sideline,

, Del Bosque's assistant, did raise his eyebrows: "The volley was unexpected.

We saw that he was getting ready, but we never imagined that it would be something so perfect.

With his less good leg, at half height...

."

A few seconds later came the break and Zidane left Hampden Park with a serious expression, as if nothing had happened.

's header had caused

after Raúl's early goal, also after an assist from Roberto Carlos: "

. those movements.

The second part was agonizing.

César was injured in the 68th minute and

relegated to the substitution during the final part of that season, took over Santo's stripes and delivered the Novena to Real Madrid with several surreal saves in the final minutes.

Casillas and Zidane. WORLD

's final whistle

found

, with his hands towards the British clouds and an eternal laugh that was crossed with a hug from Solari, the first to appear at his side for the celebration.

Curiosities of life, French and Argentine would share paths again on the

.

Like Raúl, third to embrace the Frenchman and now Castilla's coach.

The '7' tried to lift Zidane into the air but he didn't let it go, and

started a huddle in which everything was happiness.

Pure relief.

"For Zizou it was a liberation"

"I think that for Zizou it

. He had lost the 1998 final, the Seventh in Madrid, and it was the title he was looking for. I also think it was like that for

. They are such great figures that they are reflected in the titles they get", reflects César, along the same lines as Pavón: "

".

"After 1998, he had that

, it was a very important title and I do think it was a bit of a liberation. In your history, winning a Champions League marks everything," adds Grande.

On the same grass that 42 years earlier had seen

lift Madrid's fifth European Cup in the fifth edition of the tournament, Zidane consecrated

.

Beautiful aesthetically and sentimentally, less emotional than the Seventh but just as anchored in Madrid's collective memory as that goal by

at the

.

"It was an immense joy, but

. That was much more, more than 30 years had passed since the Sixth and it was very exciting," Grande recalls.

To the locker room at Hampden Park he went down to

.

"I have great memories of the King, who came to celebrate with us and was very close. My foot was shattered and I didn't feel any pain," admits César, who despite everything does not hold a grudge against fate for the bad luck of being injured in full end.

"

... It's getting sweeter and sweeter as time goes on. People remind me how unlucky I was, but what good luck it was to make it to the finals. A small town boy who even in his best dreams he imagined like this".

Such was the emotion that César prefers to keep inside what he said to Iker at the end of the game.

"I remember,

", he jokes. "He had had a bad year, we were fighting for the position and all the emotions came out, the most sincere.

It was a very high-pressure year."

"There was a lot of pressure"

That pressure was born in

's victory

in the

final against Madrid at the Bernabéu itself.

It had been two months earlier, on March 6, on the

of the white team.

An eternal blow.

"We had lost the Cup at home, it was the Centennial year and

. In the end it was a feeling of liberation for everyone", confesses César, and Pavón is still surprised by some details of the celebration: "

", he laughs: "For them to win was the usual thing".

"Pressure? The normal one," Toni Grande relativizes: "

and the club entered another era", he explains, referring to the arrival of

in the summer of 2000. The one in Glasgow was the first of the five European Cups that the president of Madrid has already accumulated.

AFP

That summer of 2002,

would win the

and

would become the first Brazilian to win the

and

.

The winger would finish second in the Ballon d'Or behind

: "I think the team depended a lot on me.

, whenever I go to his house I tell him to let me take him home for a week", Roberto Carlos jokes again, who has seen Madrid's zenith in the Champions League from the sidelines with Zidane on the bench. Three consecutive ears to cast a shadow to his volley in the history books of Madrid."Zidane has marked an era as a player in Madrid, but being objective

", assures Pavón.

That volley premiered the European magic of Madrid in the 21st century.

"That goal, Iker's saves... There is an aura, a feeling that you have when you play for Madrid, that you think these things can happen on a regular basis," Cesar thinks.

A volley born from little

's judo , as

called his son Zinedine's.

The young man born and raised in

de Marseille, a poor and troubled area, became a green belt on the tatami.

Plastic, flexible, and as stretchy as a ninety-degree volley would require.

As if he knew what life had in store for him.

Today,

, Zidane maintains the calm, reservations and silence of that celebration in Hampden Park.

Some shout, some gesture and the same final laugh of someone who has touched the sky too many times.

None, yes, like that night in 2002.

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• real Madrid

• Zinedine Zidane

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• Vicente del Bosque