Real Madrid's players celebrate victory at the end of their UEFA Champions League semi final second leg football match aginst FC Bayern Munich Real Madrid's players celebrate victory at the end of their UEFA Champions League semi final second leg football match aginst FC Bayern Munich at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid on Wednesday night. Photo: Oscar del Pozo/AFP
“Mentality” is the new buzzword in professional sport. It’s often used when describing the best of the best.
When it comes to the Champions League, no other team embodies it more than Real Madrid, who on Wednesday again showed why they are competition’s best ever team.
IOL Sport’s John Goliath looks at Madrid as well as four other sports team’s who have that never-say-die mentality when it comes to getting over the proverbial finish line.
Real Madrid
One of the pundits in the aftermath of Real Madrid’s Champions League second leg semi-final win over Bayern Munich remarked that the modern-day Los Blancos don’t have a team of “Galacticos’, but yet almost always seem to get the job done.
Make no mistake, they still have world-class players all over the park, such Vinicius Jr, the evergreen Tony Kroos and the robust Antonio Rudiger, but they got over the line with the help of former Stoke player Joselu.
Manager Carlo Ancelotti have moulded this team into a machine, which is greater than the sum of its parts. Other Madrid teams may have had bigger names, but this one doesn’t know when to quit.
Springboks
If ever there was a team who can overcome any obstacle put in front of them, it’s Rassie Erasmus’ Springboks. You don’t come from behind in three successive Rugby World Cup knockout matches without having an unmatched will to win.
The fly-on-the-wall documentary Chasing the Sun 2 showed us how deep the team had to dig to get over the line to win the quarter-final, semis and final by one point. How they got over injuries and in-game malfunctions was just astonishing to watch.
But the message has always been the Springboks play for more than themselves. They play for South Africa, to bring joy. For them, “pressure is a privilege”.
Australia’s cricket team
At last year’s Cricket World Cup in India, Australia had one foot on the plane after a massive batting collapse against Afghanistan. They got in that position thanks to some poor performances in the previous matches, and it looked like Rashid Khan and co would send them home.
However, out of nowhere, all-rounder Glen Maxwell produced one of the great World Cup knocks, scoring 201 not out while in badly dehydrated and in pain to help the team beat Afghanistan and qualify for the semi-finals.
And that is when the Aussies are at their ruthless best, beating the Proteas in the semi-finals before dispatching of the in-form hosts India in the final.
Kansas City Chiefs
Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs have won three of the last five Super Bowls in four attempts.
Mahomes is one of the most clutch quarter-backs in NFL history, and seems to get better when the game or the championship is on the line.
They beat the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 for Mahomes' first Super Bowl ring, scoring 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter after going down by 10. In 2023, the Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 after kicking the game-winning field goal with just eight seconds left on the clock.
In 2024 the Chiefs again defeated the 49ers 25-22 in overtime after coming from behind thanks to another MVP performance from Mahomes.
Bayer Leverkusen
The newly crowned Bundesliga champions are currently on an 48-game undefeated run games across all competitions. They have won 40 of those games, dethroning Bayern Munich as the current kings of German football.
Leverkusen's maiden league title, coming after five second-place finishes in their history, keeps their dream of a remarkable treble alive while shedding their unwanted 'Neverkusen' nickname for good.
They are now Bayer “Neverlosen” ...
@JohnGoliath82
IOL Sport