In the Champions League, Fine Margins and English Winners

Manchester City and Chelsea seal an all-Premier League final thanks in part to resources and rosters that no club, not even their biggest rivals, can match.

MANCHESTER, England — Edouard Mendy’s palm would still have been stinging from the Karim Benzema shot he had saved seconds before as his Chelsea teammates advanced down the field. N’Golo Kanté exchanged passes with Timo Werner, parting Real Madrid’s defense. Kai Havertz’s delicate chip clipped the bar and fell, gentle as a feather, onto Werner’s head. By the end of Wednesday’s game, Chelsea’s superiority would be painfully apparent, its place in the final of the Champions League its ample and just reward. Mason Mount would add a second goal, but there might have been many more. Havertz alone might have had three. Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea cut Real Madrid apart with an ease that, at times, bordered on embarrassing. “They played better,” Casemiro, the anchor of Real Madrid’s overworked midfield would say. Thibaut Courtois, the Madrid goalkeeper, simply described Chelsea as “the superior team.” But in that space between Mendy’s save and Werner’s goal, what would grow into a chasm was but a sliver. All that separated this result from another, quite different, was an inch or two.