Through tears, soccer went on to complete its most disconcerting year.
Helpless by the absence of public.
With a loneliness exacerbated by the death of a giant myth, whom San Siro, like the other Champions League stadiums, began to dismiss with an even quieter minute in the middle of the void.
Without the people, to whom Maradona sought so much happiness.
But the ball neither stains nor stops, and Real Madrid enjoyed it as it had not happened in a long time.
On a sad night that was also pressing for them, because both Madridistas and Inter, another European hierarch, looked over the cliff of being thrown away from La Orejona, into the ditch of the Europa League.
But Real transformed a version that was decaffeinated on paper into a memorable nighttime recital that left Inter a shove from the abyss.
Madrid arrived shivering, far from that presence of his last visit to San Siro in 2016, for the final of the first Zidane Champions League, but he displayed a beginning of an already unexpected authority.
The fatality forced him to appear without his spine, with Ramos and Benzema injured, and Casemiro still not fully recovered from his coronavirus infection.
But the stage was his from the start.
INT
0
-
2
RMA
InterS.
Handanovic, Skriniar, Alessandro Bastoni (D'Ambrosio, min. 45), de Vrij, Gagliardini (Stefano Sensi, min. 77), Achraf Hakimi (Alexis, min. 62), Vidal, Ashley Young, Barella, Lautaro Martínez (Perisic , min. 45) and Lukaku (Eriksen, min. 85) Real Madrid Courtois, Nacho, Ferland Mendy, Carvajal, Varane, Modric, Kroos, Odegaard (Casemiro, min. 57), Lucas Vázquez, Hazard (Vinicius Junior, min. 77 ) and Mariano (Rodrygo, min. 57)
Goals0-1 min.
6: Hazard.
0-2 min.
58: Achraf Hakimi (pp).
Referee Anthony Taylor Yellow cards Gagliardini (min. 18), Vidal (min. 32) and Stefano Sensi (min. 85) Red cards Vidal (min. 32)
The ball flew to him in a round that spread throughout the field and made Inter despair, somewhat more timid than Di Stéfano in his pressure, also surprised by the speed of the ball.
Kroos and Modric unfolded a recital with the precision and rhythm of the good old days in which Madrid handled the game with the poise of those who govern with sufficiency.
It is November, but the game gave off aromas of those spring nights in which the Real court the glasses.
There was something of that, with Zidane's men still far from certifying their classification for the second round, still on the wire.
Madrid kneaded the game without sleeping, rather shaking Inter from side to side, who could not find a place to tie their feet to the ground.
And that rocking the rival was providing more certainty to the whites.
So many, that after a very long transit with the ball, of minutes, Nacho ventured to the opposite area.
His audacity carried a message.
Most of the previous uncertainties focused on the couple that was going to form with Varane, without the tutelage of Sergio Ramos.
Previous experiences promised shocks: seven defeats in the last European rounds without the captain.
If that was not enough, Nacho was waiting to dance Lukaku, who had not been able to be at the Di Stéfano, and returned to Europe with the loose charger: four goals in the last week.
But the first to hit was Nacho.
The central defender did the unthinkable in his invasion of the area, and the confusion led Odegaard and Hazard to do what has always been expected of them.
The Norwegian looked further ahead, after too tepid afternoons, and hit one of his passes that eliminate dangers and almost require a goal to follow.
This time it was a penalty to Nacho, overwhelmed by Barella.
Then, without Ramos or Benzema, Hazard's hierarchy appeared.
Mariano, who had caught the ball, immediately handed it over to the Belgian to take over the throw.
Madrid took an advantage and this time the advantage did not lower the revolutions.
Kroos and Modric maintained command, fluidity and precision, in step with Odegaard, more willing to look and play forward.
The display was choral.
Lucas was threat, sentinel and lung.
Carvajal and Mendy finished screwing up a defense in which neither Lukaku nor Lautaro caused a tremor in Varane and Nacho.
Ramos was not missed, and neither was Casemiro, who appeared for a while at the end.
The defense was total, the team pressed towards the center when Inter recovered, with all routes to Lukaku blocked.
Inter were missing and Vidal, desperate to chase Kroos.
So much so that he did not control his protests for what he believed was a penalty and ended up expelled.
The game, until then always far from the reach of the Italians, already seemed impossible for them.
At the end of the break they tried to re-engage almost by shoving, trying to get the ball to Lukaku, rolling down the center, but it hardly happened and the appointment ended up killing Rodrygo in the first ball he touched. His idyll with the Champions League is unusual. In nine European games he has scored six times and given three assists: he has participated in a goal every 49 minutes. The Brazilian put the stamp on a carat victory for Madrid at San Siro, the night that football fired Maradona more lonely than ever.
