Arjen Robben's Champions League Final: From First Half Zero to Second Half Hero

He didn’t need to say anything at the final whistle. His face revealed everything.

Arjen Robben, after a first half that, in other circumstances, could have been a contributing factor for a Bayern Munich defeat in the Champions League Final, redeemed himself with a second period for the ages, scoring once and setting up another goal as Bayern claimed a fifth European Cup.

“It was an even game,” he remarked after the match. “We had chances; they had chances. It’s not quite sunk in yet, but it will. There’s a lot of emotion. I can’t believe it!” (UEFA)

And no one had as many chances as Robben, himself.

On the stroke of 30 minutes the Dutchman found himself in a one-on-one situation with Roman Weidenfeller, and although the Borussia Dortmund goalkeeper did well to make the save, Robben’s Bayern teammates walked away fuming after he might have squared the ball across goal.

Six minutes later he had a chance to make up for his first blunder, but with his instincts saying “shoot” and everyone else saying “pass” he ended up doing neither, indecisively fumbling the ball off Weidenfeller and out for a corner.

Finally, with just two minutes to go before the break, he accepted a long pass behind defender Mats Hummels, cocked his foot and unleashed a powerful shot, only to see it strike Weidenfeller in the face.

Three quality chances and nothing to show for it.

With the Champions League Final teetering nervously on a knife’s edge, Robben’s flawed finishing might easily have gone down as the decisive factor in a devastating loss. But he had other ideas.

Straight after the restart, Bayern Munich began playing everything through Robben, and with Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger helping to overload the right-hand attacking flank, the 29-year-old found himself with even more touches than he had enjoyed in the first half.

As the hour-mark ticked off the clock, he had already altered the narrative of his performance, threading a delicate pass from Weidenfeller’s extreme right to Mario Mandzukic, who tapped the ball into the back of the net for the opening goal of the contest.

And while Dortmund managed to fight back and equalize from the penalty spot just eight minutes later, Robben still wasn’t finished with his imprint on the match—a mark he would finish carving out just two minutes before the end of normal time.

And what a mark.

Accepting a cute, back-heeled lay-off from Franck Ribery just inside the 18-yard box, he evaded the sliding challenges of Hummels and Neven Subotic before delicately placing his shot to the outside of Weidenfeller that trickled, almost in slow motion, over the goal line.

And as he watched his effort become the winning goal in a Champions League final, he fell to his knees in relief.

His first half, his previous failures—all of it vindicated in an instant, washed away in a flood of emotion only his redemption could bring.

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