Borussia Dortmund was the defending champion; Real Madrid the eternal pretender. 17 years had passed since its last, 7th, European Championship win.
It was the first of April. The Santiago Bernabéu stadium was packed to the rafters for the occasion. Everything was set for a great night of European football. The 'Los Blancos' superfans, climbing the metal fences behind the North-end of the stadium, put too much strain on the ropes attaching the goal to the fence, and it toppled over. The game was about to begin.
It was chaos. There was no spare goal in the stadium. The Germans began pressurising the match referee and delegate. "It has to be stopped, it has to be stopped". The rules state that, in such an event, a 0-3 result would automatically be given.
The emergency fix was to bring in a goal from the Ciudad Deportiva training ground. It was brought in, set up and the game started and hour and a quarter late. Real Madrid was fined over €700,000 and given a one match ban. This bizarre incident will forever be a much-told part of the club's long history, remembered as the match they came very close to losing.
Pedja Mijatovic remembers it as if it were yesterday: "Nothing like that had happened before. It was totally crazy. The players thought the game would be called off and it would be awarded to them (0-3). Nowadays, with UEFA as strict as they are, we would have been knocked out".
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