Johnny Phillips: Can German efficiency stifle Real’s big-hitters?

Matters hardly improved in their next outing which produced a drab 0-0 draw against AC Milan at home.

But it was those two back-to-back victories against Eddie Howe’s Newcastle United which turned the tide in the group and set Dortmund on their way to the knockout stages.

Real Madrid had no such dramas in their own group, winning all six of their matches and finishing eight points ahead of nearest rivals Napoli.

With Jude Bellingham in fine form after his £100million move from Dortmund, the Bernabau club made harder work of the knockout stages.

Goalkeeper Andriy Lunin came to the fore in the Last-16 win over RB Leipzig before becoming the hero of the penalty shootout victory against Manchester City in the quarter-finals.

Dortmund’s progress to the semi-finals was more straightforward, on the other hand, with a solid win over Dutch outfit PSV Eindhoven and then a tighter margin of victory against Atletico Madrid.

It meant Edin Terzic’s side entered their semi-final reunion with PSG in far more confident shape than the group stages and they did the job with a 2-0 aggregate victory over the French side.

Dortmund survived that occasion against Kylian Mbappe and co with some tight-knit defending and a little bit of assistance from the woodwork.

PSG hit the post a number of times over the two legs but nobody could deny Dortmund their fortune.

Real, by contrast, came through another nerve-shredding tie with their epic 4-3 aggregate success over Thomas Tuchel’s Bayern Munich, which saw Stoke City misfit Joselu coming to the fore late on in the second leg.

The thing about Real Madrid, though, is that they always find a way.

And here they are, proving that point, in their 18th European Cup final. Carlo Ancelotti’s side seem to thrive on doing it the hard way.

Perhaps it is part of the club’s DNA, nothing is straightforward yet time and time again they come through the obstacles put in their way.

This is a special tournament for the club and it is embraced by their big hitters.

Vinicius Junior, Bellingham and Tony Kroos are all finding form at just the right time, but it is the calm yet authoritative Ancelotti who inspires most confidence.

His CV is nothing short of astounding. He became the first head coach to win the Champions League on four occasions and is the only man in any dugout to have won titles in England, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Ancelotti has kept things pragmatic at the back with a rigid four-man defence, but he is prepared to be more spontaneous further forward, giving Bellingham free reign to vacate his midfield role to supplement the attack.

Real will take some stopping, and Dortmund are likely to adopt a counter-attacking approach aimed at keeping themselves in the game early on before becoming more expansive as time ticks on.

Their 4-4-3 system becomes more defensive out of possession but when they have the ball the pace of Jadon Sancho, Donyell Malen and Karim Adeyemi becomes crucial.

Terzic has yellow and black coursing through his veins. He began his coaching career in Dortmund’s academy in 2010 before stepping up into first team coaching.

It is Dortmund’s first final since the 2012/13 season when they also had to play at Wembley. On that occasion, Jurgen Klopp’s men were edged out of an all-German affair by rivals Bayern Munich.

If anything, this time around, Dortmund will more of the underdog than they were 11 years ago.

It will take a Herculean effort to keep out Madrid’s Galacticos, but don’t rule out a cany side whose game management has already stood them in great shape throughout the tournament.

It could end up being a much closer contest than many pundits are predicting.