Just ridiculous. Just Real Madrid. The team that appears to own this competition, that has some mystical hold over it and has lifted that trophy 14 times, are in the final again because, well, because of course they are. Late, very late on another wild, magical night here, the Santiago Bernabéu launched into a familiar chant. “That’s how Madrid win,” it goes, and so they do. Again and again and again, each time more epic, more absurd than the last, this football force that just can’t be contained. The closer you think you are, the further away it is, as Bayern Munich found.

Bayern had held on, they had survived, and they had scored. They should have scored again, ending this, killing off the team that just will not die, but they hadn’t. And yet still, Wembley was so close now. There were less than three minutes to go in this semi-final, but it turned out to be a lifetime, one they will surely spend wondering how this happened. Enough time not just for Madrid to equalise but to win it, two goals from the former Stoke and Newcastle striker Joselu, sent on as a sub, taking them to the final, this place exploding.

• Champions League semi-final, 8pm BST kick-off ( first leg: 2-2 )
• Live scoreboard | Read Football Daily | And you can mail Scott

Last week this happened …

… and if tonight’s second leg at the Bernabeu proves to be even half as entertaining, we’ll be lucky people indeed. Will Harry Kane and Eric Dier make it to their second Champions League final? Will Jude Bellingham make it to his first? Can Bayern win at a ground where they’ve lost on nine of their previous 13 visits, winning only twice? Kick off in Madrid is at 8pm BST, 9pm local. It’s on!

Italian formerly managed Bavarian club and claims he was not supported. He hopes to stake claim in deep-seated rivalry again

Carlo Ancelotti said he was on the “good side” of European football’s grandest rivalry and, on the eve of the Champions League semi-final second leg between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, revealed the Bavarian club did not support him when he was coach.

The Italian, though, insisted he remained friends with Uli Hoeness and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the former president and CEO respectively, and that the Bayern coach, Thomas Tuchel, would think he was on the good side too as the pair prepare for the most tense of ties, which starts level at 2-2 . “Today, we enjoy; tomorrow, we will worry,” he said.

Girona briefly promised the unlikeliest of triumphs but the sheer variety in Ancelotti’s side made them a cut above the rest

Over two hours had passed since the final whistle went on Real Madrid’s 3-0 victory over Cadiz and some of their players were still inside inside the Santiago Bernabeu watching on TV when they officially found out they were champions, but they had known for a long time. The title, eventually delivered by Girona’s 4-2 victory over Barcelona 681 kilometres to the north-east and confirmed at 8.30pm on the 34th Saturday of the season, did not see them board an open-top bus down the Castellana to Cibeles, although fans did gather by the goddess of fertility. There was more to do – Bayern Munich come on Wednesday night – and, besides, this was already done.

It had been for some time. Two weeks earlier, Jude Bellingham had scored a 94th-minute goal to win the clásico , their last remaining contenders eliminated, if you could truly call Barcelona that. Two months earlier they had put four past the nearest thing they had to genuine challengers, effectively eliminating Girona too: they were the most exciting , the most surprising team but they would not be champions. As for Atlético Madrid, the only team to defeat Real all season, they had eliminated themselves even sooner, gone by Christmas. This hadn’t been a race; ultimately, it had been a parade.

Tuchel is leaving and Rangnick likely to come in, with several Red Bull alumni already in place amid disquiet among fans

There is always something now. There is always something later. Even as the sweat was drying on Bayern Munich’s 2-2 draw against Real Madrid on Tuesday night, thoughts were beginning to turn, with alarming speed, to new plans and new eras. While the outgoing Thomas Tuchel dissected the performances of Kim Min-jae and Leroy Sané in the broadcast zone, the top brass were a few yards away discussing his likely successor: Bayern’s present, and future, and soon-to-be past, all gauchely colliding against each other in one big hot mess.

The deal with Ralf Rangnick is not quite done at the time of writing, but by all accounts imminent. Rangnick is said to be keen, a three-year contract is waiting to be signed, and a seven-figure compensation deal with the Austrian Football Association, where Rangnick is contracted as national team coach, should be a formality. “We all know that Ralf Rangnick is a good coach and has achieved a lot in his career,” the sporting director, Christoph Freund, said. “If everything fits, then it will be done.”

• Bellingham taken off with fatigue and cramp in second half
• Ancelotti: ‘He was just tired. He will get back to his best’

Carlo Ancelotti admitted that Jude Bellingham was “not at his best” in the first leg of Real Madrid’s Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich , but backed him to come good in the return game at the Bernabéu next week.

Ancelotti revealed that Bellingham was suffering from cramp and fatigue during the game, a problem that has often afflicted him in the past, and one that led to his substitution here after 75 minutes.

These are Real Madrid’s principles, and if you don’t like them … well, they have others. Carlo Ancelotti’s side were pummelled by Bayern Munich for long periods here, run left and right, hassled and jostled and almost toppled. And yet – of course – here they are, still standing, even marginal favourites courtesy of the magical right boot of Vinícius Júnior.

Vinícius’s late penalty salvaged a game that Thomas Tuchel and Bayern had threatened to snatch in four riotous second-half minutes. Tuchel’s half-time substitution stretched the game, changed the game, shook out two well-deserved goals by Harry Kane and the wonderful Leroy Sané to cancel Vinícius’s early strike. As the Bayern coach prepares to take his leave, this was a reminder that there are few better coaches in the world at the bespoke gameplan for the big occasion .

• Champions League semi-final updates, 8pm BST kick-off
• Live scoreboard | Read Football Daily | And you can mail Scott

Bayern Munich: Neuer, Kimmich, Kim, Dier, Mazraoui, Laimer, Goretzka, Sane, Muller, Musiala, Kane.
Subs: Upamecano, Gnabry, Choupo-Moting, Zaragoza, Peretz, Davies, Guerreiro, Ulreich, Tel, Pavlovic.

Real Madrid: Lunin, Lucas, Rudiger, Nacho, Mendy, Valverde, Tchouameni, Kroos, Bellingham, Rodrygo, Vinicius Junior.
Subs: Courtois, Eder Militao, Modric, Camavinga, Joselu, Ceballos, Garcia, Diaz, Guler, Arrizabalaga.

While Harry Kane has navigated his career like he always has another season, his England teammate plays like this is his last

There were a few tourists from Madrid taking selfies outside the Allianz Arena on Monday lunchtime and, as footballing pilgrimages go, this is one you really have to want. Wedged between two major road junctions and approached either through a concrete jungle of slip roads or a 40-minute schlep on the train followed by a long trudge past a sewage treatment plant, perhaps the nicest thing you can say about the location of Bayern Munich’s stadium is that it at least offers easy access to everywhere else.

How many times will Harry Kane have to peer at this stadium through blacked-out windows before it begins to feel like home? The language will take years to master, if he ever manages it. The Allianz does not feel like a part of Munich in the way that the Estadio Bernabéu looms above Madrid or the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium dominates the High Road. And, of course, his name has already been made at the boyhood club that still has a buy-back clause for him. However long he stays at Bayern, on some level home will always be somewhere else.