Juventus and Real Madrid will meet for the 20th time in European competition on Tuesday night.
Given the gravitas of the two clubs involved and their enviable European records, it is certainly fitting that only one fixture – Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich with 24 meetings – has been contested more in elite competition.
Without question one of the most significant of these 20 heavyweight encounters came 20 years ago in the Champions League final at the Amsterdam ArenA.
Real Madrid defeated Juventus 1-0 to win the Champions League in 1998 – Christian Panucci lifts the famous trophy after their triumph in Amsterdam
Real Madrid’s Fernando Hierro kisses the trophy following his team’s 1-0 win in Amsterdam
Jubilant celebrations as Fernando Morientes (middle) celebrates the 1998 win with Panucci (left) and Jaime Sanchez Fernandez
It was a very different football landscape at that time. Italian football had been in the ascendancy for a number of seasons, with impressive Champions League victories for Milan in 1994 and Juventus in 1996.
The teams of Serie A – defensively so resolute, tactically so impregnable – set the standard on the European stage and were masterful in the game management involved to succeed in a two-legged Champions League tie.
But, as the Millennium approached, a new era of success for Real was dawning.
This 1-0 triumph over Juventus in the Dutch capital on May 20, 1998 was the first brilliant ray of light, the heralding of their ‘Galactico’ period.
It is important to understand, however, that they entered this final as definite underdogs.
Predrag Mijatovic rounds the Juventus keeper Angelo Peruzzi to score the winning goal
The success in 1998 ended an agonising 32-year wait for Real to lift the European Cup
Madrid had finished a distant fourth behind Barcelona in La Liga and the club that had monopolised the early years of the European Cup found themselves starved of such top-level continental success for 32 long years.
Juventus, meanwhile, had just secured the Scudetto back home by five points and were in their third consecutive Champions League final; their penalty shoot-out win over Ajax in 1996 followed by a shock 3-1 loss to Borussia Dortmund in 1997.
Nonetheless, both teams were bursting with star quality. Marcello Lippi’s Juventus had the French magician Zinedine Zidane, a midfield containing Didier Deschamps and Edgar Davids, and a front line of Alessandro Del Piero and Filippo Inzaghi.
Just a few weeks later, Zidane and Deschamps would guide France to World Cup glory, with the former winning the Ballon d’Or at the end of the year.
These star names were supported by such reliable figures as Antonio Conte, Paolo Montero, Mark Iuliano and Angelo Di Livio.
Real, then managed by the German Jupp Heynckes, featured such luminaries as Raul, Fernando Morientes, Clarence Seedorf, Christian Panucci, Fernando Hierro, Roberto Carlos and Christian Karembeu.
Manuel Sanchis and Fernando Sanchis offered a defensive foundation, while the Croatian striker Davor Suker started on the bench.
This was the seventh of Real Madrid’s 12 European Cup/Champions League successes
Real’s players parade the trophy following their 1-0 win over Juventus in the May 1998 final
The Real team were greeted by thousands of their fans upon their return to Madrid
Some players were past their peak, the stars of others were rising, but it certainly proved a good combination on the night.
In a comment that no Real player would utter nowadays, Yugoslavian striker Predrag Mijatovic said: ‘Boys, we are here and we don’t know if any of us will get to a final again.
‘So let’s go out there and play a great match – we have to do everything possible to win.’
The Real players were reputedly offered bonuses of £250,000 each if they ended their three-decade wait for a seventh European Cup triumph.
With 48,500 engrossed spectators in Amsterdam and millions around the world, the final started at breakneck speed with no trace of apprehension from either side.
Filippo Inzaghi of Juventus (right) fights for the ball with Christian Karembeu of Real Madrid
Gianluca Pessotto (left) of Juventus attempts to stop Real’s match-winner Predrag Mijatovic
Mijatovic rounds Juventus keeper Peruzzi to score the decisive goal after 67 minutes
There was no shortage of flicks and tricks from both teams early on – Zidane played some delightful passes, Raul nutmegged Moreno Torricelli, Roberto Carlos escaped Inzaghi with an overhead flick.
Del Piero whipped the ball off the toes of Seedorf, starting a move that culminated in Deschamps forcing Real goalkeeper Bodo Illgner into the first save.
Inside the opening minutes, Hierro twice used his defensive intelligence and physicality to halt Del Piero as the deadly striker burst through on goal, while also marking Zidane out of the game.
When he pressed on, Hierro took a pass from Fernando Redondo and let fly a rising drive that Angelo Peruzzi tipped over from just under his crossbar.
As the contest wore on all-square, Real grew in confidence – Mijatovic skinned Torricelli and crossed for Raul, who uncharacteristically spurned a golden chance from five yards out.
Clarence Seedorf of Real Madrid (left) and Edgar Davids of Juventus chase after a loose ball
Roberto Carlos protests against a yellow card as Zinedine Zidane of Juventus watches on
Morientes would do likewise from a Roberto Carlos corner, while two of the Brazilian’s bendy free-kicks whistled past the Italian goal.
On 67 minutes came the defining moment of the final. Roberto Carlos whipped in a shot that may or may not have hit the target. Iuliano tried to control it but slipped out of position.
Mijatovic ruthlessly snatched the ball off the flailing defender, evaded the recovery lunge, knocked it round Peruzzi and stuck a left-footed shot high into the net. Cue wild Madrid celebrations.
Juventus believed they had time to recover the situation. Del Piero broke clear and crossed for Inzaghi, who couldn’t turn the ball home. Davids was denied by Illgner and Zidane curled a late free-kick a fraction wide.
For the second consecutive season, Juventus had gone all the way to the final and fallen just short.
As Sportsmail’s Jeff Powell wrote on the night: ‘It was as if the ghosts of Puskas, di Stefano and Gento had materialised through the mists of the Dutch bulb fields to invoke the spirit of glorious football past.
Alessandro Del Piero, the Juventus forward, makes a burst between Hierro (left) and Panucci
Raul takes a tumble under challenge from Didier Deschamps (on the ground) during the final
Fernando Morientes of Real Madrid attempts to break into the Juventus box under pressure
‘This was the grand manner in which great football is meant to be played. Here was the stirring of golden echoes from the days when Real Madrid swept across Europe with a macho flourish of matadors in studs.
‘The kill, keenly executed though it was by the new predator from Yugoslavia Predrag Mijatovic, was almost irrelevant. The swagger is back in our beautiful game. The Real is restored to Madrid.’
It was merely the beginning. Further Champions League successes in 2000 and 2002, by which time Zidane was in the white of Madrid following a £46m transfer, underlined their status as Europe’s most decorated club. They now have 12 wins.
By contrast, Juventus have yet to add to their two European titles. They lost to Milan in 2003, Barcelona in 2015 and Real in last season’s final by a margin of 4-1 in Cardiff.
It was, of course, Zidane that guided Real to that latest victory as manager and his former club now stand in the way of a hat-trick of wins.
Now these two aristocrats of the continental scene prepare to do battle again.