REAL MADRID CF: ROLL OF HONOUR
In his father's footsteps
Manuel Sanchís emulated his father by helping Madrid win the 1998 UEFA Champions League final to end a 32-year wait for the European crown
Honours
EUROPEAN CUP 12
1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1966, 1998,
2000, 2002, 2014, 2016, 2017
UEFA CUP 2
1985, 1986
UEFA SUPER CUP 4
2002, 2014, 2016, 2017
FIFA CLUB WORLD CUP 6
1960, 1998, 2002, 2014, 2016, 2017
FIFA CLUB OF THE CENTURY 1
2000
LIGA 33
1932, 1933, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1961,
1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969,
1972, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1986,
1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1995, 1997, 2001,
2003, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2017
COPA DEL REY 19
1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1917, 1934, 1936,
1946, 1947, 1962, 1970, 1974, 1975, 1980,
1982, 1989, 1993, 2011, 2014
European Cup finals
2017 REAL MADRID 4-1 JUVENTUS
Navas; Carvajal, Ramos (C), Varane, Marcelo; Kroos (Morata 89), Casemiro, Modrić; Isco (Asensio 82), Benzema (Bale 77), Ronaldo
2016 REAL MADRID 1-1 ATLÉTICO (AET)
Madrid won 5-3 on penalties
2014 REAL MADRID 4-1 ATLÉTICO (AET)
2002 REAL MADRID 2-1 LEVERKUSEN
2016 REAL MADRID 3-0 VALENCIA
2000 REAL MADRID 1-0 JUVENTUS
1998 LIVERPOOL 1-0 REAL MADRID
1966 REAL MADRID 2-1 PARTIZAN
1964 INTER MILAN 3-1 REAL MADRID
1962 BENFICA 5-3 REAL MADRID
1960 REAL MADRID 7-3 FRANKFURT
1959 REAL MADRID 2-0 REIMS
1958 REAL MADRID 3-2 AC MILAN (AET)
1957 REAL MADRID 2-0 FIORENTINA
1956 REAL MADRID 4-3 REIMS
“It was the most important title in the club’s history,” says Manuel Sanchís. “For me, without a doubt, it’s the most important of all the trophies the club has won up to now.” Sanchís understands the history of Real Madrid CF like few others, so when he highlights the significance of the club’s seventh European Cup – ‘La Séptima’ – won 20 years ago this month, it is worth listening.
The former defender was a veteran in Jupp Heynckes’ Madrid team for the 1998 final in Amsterdam, where Predrag Mijatović sealed a 1-0 victory against Juventus to secure the club’s first continental crown of the UEFA Champions League era. It came three days before the 33rd birthday of a player whose father, also Manuel, had been in the last Madrid side to win the European Cup, 32 years earlier.
“We were at a stage then where Madrid had gone a long time without winning it – not since 1966,” he recalls. “We’d been in the final in 1981 in Paris, which we lost to Liverpool. It seemed like the possibility of making Real Madrid champions of Europe again had become ever more distant.”
Madrid European Cup records
MOST GAMES
150
IKER CASILLAS
MOST GOALS
105
CRISTIANO RONALDO
Sanchís came into the world on the day of a Madrid derby and grew up steeped in the club’s traditions. He helped Madrid win back-to-back UEFA Cups in 1985 and 1986, doing so as part of a homegrown crop named ‘La Quinta del Buitre’ in honour of star striker Emilio Butragueño – ‘El Buitre’ (the Vulture). This ‘Vulture’s Band’, which also included playmaker Míchel, reached the 1988 European Cup semi-final but lost on away goals to PSV Eindhoven. By 1998, he was the sole survivor.
“I remember we had a run of five straight league titles in the 1980s and people kept demanding the European Cup,” adds Sanchís. “I’d been through the period of the UEFA Cups and PSV – a lot of history behind me and a huge desire to win it. The day I won ‘La Séptima’, I went into the dressing room with a feeling of having completed my duty.”
Sanchís had finally followed in the footsteps of a father who was always fully supportive. “What we tried to do was give our name even greater meaning inside the club – but never competing, always hand in hand,” he remembers. “Perhaps it might seem unusual, but when I was speaking to my dad beforehand about ‘La Sexta’ [the 1966 final], the image that stayed with me – and what I wanted to experience most – wasn’t the match but the return to Barajas [airport]. I wanted to live what my father had lived. And of course, I did live it.”
He would live it one more time in 2000, as a late substitute in Madrid’s 3-0 final victory against Valencia CF. “I remember ‘El Buitre’ called me afterwards and said, ‘You’ve won two now.’ I had a spectacular end to my career.
