Improved Real missing last year's Midas touch

Real Madrid discovered against Bayern Munich that despite their much improved defence and insatiable appetite for attack they have somehow lost the golden touch that brought them last year's Champions League title. "Our European campaign has been brilliant, even though we haven't made it to the final," said coach Vicente del Bosque
after Bayern's 2-1 win in the semifinal second leg on Wednesday took the Germans through to the final against Valencia in Milan on May 23.

"It's painful because everyone was predicting a happy ending against Bayern but it wasn't to be," del Bosque said. Del Bosque's side have played much better than they did for most of the competition last season, when they squeezed through the two group stages before finally finding some form in the knock-out rounds.

That lift at the end of the season, when injuries forced them into an improvised 5-3-2 formation, took them past
Manchester United in the quarter-finals and Bayern in the semifinals before they outclassed Valencia 3-0 in the final. This year they have looked the leading candidates for what would have been a ninth European Cup success all season. They breezed through both opening stages, finishing comfortably atop their group each time.
Performances such as their 4-0 home win over Sporting Lisbon, a 2-0 success at Leeds United and their thrilling 3-2 victory over Lazio saw them installed as favourites for the competition again.

After a surprise 3-2 defeat away at Galatasaray in the quarter-final first leg they stormed to a 3-0 win at the
Bernabeu before coming unstuck against Bayern Munich. Bayern gained revenge for their semifinal defeat last season with a disciplined 1-0 win in the Spanish capital before a 2-1 success in Wednesday's return leg.
"We were the better team," said midfielder Ivan Helguera. "We gave it everything but we lost. That's football."
A trip to the Cibeles fountain in Madrid, the traditional setting for Real celebrations, still looks highly likely, with the team eight points clear of Deportivo Coruna at the top of the Spanish league standings with five games left to play.

FOUR TITLES LOST

But del Bosque may be concerned about the inability of this year's team to find their best form when it really matters, as the loss of four titles already this season testifies. At the start of the campaign, they were beaten 2-1 by Galatasaray in the European Supercup match in Monaco, a golden goal by Mario Jardel giving the UEFA Cup holders the title.

Then followed the World Club Cup final defeat to Boca Juniors in November, when two goals from Martin Palermo inside the first six minutes and a brilliant midfield display from Juan Roman Riquelme set up a 2-1 win for the Argentine side.

Real suffered a more embarrassing, if less important defeat in the first round of the King's Cup in Spain in December, as third division Toledo conjured up a scarcely credible 2-1 win.

They improved markedly around the turn of the year to take the lead in the league title race and stay on course for more European success before they came up against a Bayern team in outstanding form. Bearing in mind the controversial $56 million outlay on Luis Figo in the off-season, Real cannot afford to end the year
without any silverware, making the last five league games vitally important for the club. "We now have to concentrate on the league," said Helguera. "We're a long way ahead and there can be no excuses for not winning this one."