🏟 Greatest Games: Derby delight as Real Madrid win 'La Decima' | OneFootball

If you’re going to wait 14 years to win your 10th European Cup, you might as well do it like this.

Real Madrid are a club built around their success on the continent, with countless coaches getting the chop because they failed in the Champions League.

Fabio Capello got the boot during his first spell in charge despite winning LaLiga because they were deemed to have performed poorly in the big one. The same goes for Vicente del Bosque in the mid-90s.

Carlo Ancelotti was never going to suffer that same fate.

The Italian was hired in June 2013 purely because of his astonishing record in the Champions League, after three years of failure under José Mourinho.

‘The Special One’ had gone toe-to-toe with Pep Guardiola’s history-defining Barcelona side domestically, but fell at the final hurdle every time in Europe.

Los Blancos had not tasted continental glory since Zinedine Zidane’s jaw-dropping volley against Bayer Leverkusen in the Glasgow.

It was about time that changed.

If you’re looking for comprehensive ways of reaching a Champions League final, look no further than Real Madrid 2013/14.

Copenhagen, Juventus and Galatasaray were vanquished in the group stages Ancelotti’s side dropping just two points.

And then it was time for the capital club to assert their dominance over the Bundesliga.

Schalke were beaten 9-2 over two legs in the last 16 and the Borussia Dortmund – despite a spirited second leg comeback – were beaten 3-2 in the quarter-finals.

Bayern Munich were next up in the semi-finals with Ancelotti’s men putting in one of their best performances of the campaign to rout the Bavarians 4-0 at the Allianz Arena.

Atlético Madrid were their opponents for the final – who had seemingly beaten every European heavyweight going on their way to Lisbon.

Porto, Zenit, Barcelona, Chelsea, Milan – it’s some list of scalps and meant that it was too close to call going into this most unique of derbies.

It was the first time ever that two teams from the same city had made it al the way to a European Cup final and that added tension was palpable at kick off.

That tension is surely the only way to describe why Iker Casillas made such a howling error on 36 minutes, with the goalkeeper hesitating to come off his line and then watching in horror as Diego Godin headed into the back of the net.

Diego Simeone’s men were 1-0 up and looking set to win their first ever European Cup until Sergio Ramos rolled his sleeves up and rescued the white half of Madrid.

92:48 is a time stamp that will forever be seared into the memories of all Real Madrid fans, with an unmarked Ramos heading past Thibaut Courtois for a dramatic equaliser.

And with that, Atleti collapsed.

The game went into extra time and Real Madrid scored three unanswered goals with Gareth Bale, Marcelo and Cristiano Ronaldo etching their names into history.

‘La Decima’ – The Tenth – was theirs.