Real Madrid v Dortmund LIVE: Latest Champions League final build-up

Real Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos will bid farewell to Los Blancos after 10 years with the club.

The Germany international, who will retire following this summer’s European Championship in his homeland, has already won the Champions League four times with Real, as well as once with Bayern Munich.

The Germany international has won over a century of caps for his country and, having initially retired from national team action in mid-2021, returned at the request of Julian Nagelsmann earlier this year. He is set to play a central role for Germany when they host the European Championship.

Borussia Dortmund legend Marco Reus will play his final game for his beloved team tonight after a 12-year stay at the club.

The 34-year-old attacking midfielder, who was part of the Dortmund team beaten by Bayern in the all-German 2013 final at Wembley, is a firm fan-favourite after helping the team to two German cup wins in his time at the Westfalenstadion.

As you’d expect from a European Cup final, tonight’s game will include some of the world’s most in-form players, upcoming stars, cult heroes and departing club legends.

Such players provide plenty of talking points, with a lot of focus on a pair of Englishmen who’ve had vastly different seasons.

Real midfielder Bellingham is poised for arguably the biggest occasion of his club career – against his former side and at the home of English football. Fresh off winning the LaLiga player of the season award, he’ll be hoping to stake his claim towards a potential Ballon d’Or with a commanding performance tonight.

Meanwhile in Dortmund, on-loan Manchester United winger Jadon Sancho returns to Wembley, where he missed one of England’s penalties in their Euro 2020 final shoot-out defeat to Italy, with plenty to prove.

The 24-year-old forward has been capped just once by Gareth Southgate since but is back playing regularly following his January loan switch from Old Trafford, and will hope to return to Manchester with the most coveted prize in club football.

We’re just under five hours from kick-off now, so here’s a reminder of how you can watch club football’s showpiece event.

The game takes place at Wembley on Saturday 1 June 2024, with kick-off set for 8pm BST. As with all Uefa matches this season, the match will be broadcast live on TNT Sports and can be streamed on the discovery+ app.

If you’re travelling abroad and want to watch major sporting events, you might need a VPN to unblock your streaming app. Our VPN round-up is here to help and includes deals on VPNs in the market. Viewers using a VPN need to make sure that they comply with any local regulations where they are, and also with the terms of their service provider.

Below is everything you need to know ahead of the game.

The fans have already started to gather around Wembley Stadium ahead of kick off, and elsewhere around London:

Spanish police have seized 11 metric tonnes of fake jerseys to be sold in Spain in the run-up to Saturday’s Champions League final in London between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund and the Euro 2024 in Germany next month.

A search of 15 heavy lorries had produced the haul of jerseys along with other fake products such as luxury watches, leather goods and electronics, with an estimated market value of more than six million euros, according to a statement on Friday.

The investigation started in April, when two tonnes of counterfeit shirts of Spanish football clubs sent from China were seized.

Police found out that a large shipment was bound for Spain before the Champions League final and the Euro finals, and set up a sting operation involving more than 20 agents.

They seized more than 36,500 fake sports kits of several Spanish and European soccer clubs emblazoned with names of top footballers such as Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, France’s Kylian Mbappe, and a number of Spanish stars.

The counterfeits were intended for several organisations based in Spain that were planning to distribute them through street commerce and online.

Joselu and Niclas Fullkrug will offer a different threat at Wembley in the Champions League final with old-fashioned forwards thriving again, writes Richard Jolly:

_{It is only two years since Real Madrid were last in a Champions League final. Joselu was there; as a supporter, not a substitute. Then the centre-forward they faced was Sadio Mane, who finished second in the Ballon d’Or that year. Now it will be Niclas Fullkrug, who was a second-division footballer then. A fine one, admittedly; he had helped Werder Bremen to promotion but he wasn’t even their top scorer. That mantle rested with Marvin Ducksch.}

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti may not have such a tough decision to make after all when it comes to picking a goalkeeper for this Champions League final.

Much of the pre-game talk has centered around whether Ancelotti will go with Andriy Lunin — who has played for most of the season and led the team to the final — or Thibaut Courtois, the veteran who has recently returned from a long-term knee injury.

Now Lunin is reportedly sick with the flu and said in a post on social media late on Thursday that he won’t “be able to prepare” for the final against Borussia Dortmund.

“I am very sad to say that I won’t be able to prepare for the most important game of the season and the most important game of my life with my team,” Lunin wrote on Instagram. “Many thanks for the messages of support and encouragement!”

Coach Ancelotti said on Monday that Lunin was running a fever and was unable to practice with his teammates. Lunin stayed in the Spanish capital while Madrid’s team flew to London on Friday. The club said that he would join the team on Saturday, hours before the game at Wembley Stadium.

Neither the player nor the club have publicly ruled out the possibility of him playing, but his illness could provide an opportunity for Courtois to end his season on a remarkable high after being sidelined for most of the campaign.

Only Borussia Dortmund stand between Los Blancos extending their own European Cup record, writes Miguel Delaney. But is their domination good for football?

_{Florentino Perez couldn’t have it any other way. On Monday, after a Spanish court gave the latest ruling on the Super League case, those in the Real Madrid president’s circle were very quick to insist to everyone that the judgment actually represented a victory for the project. This was despite virtually every legal expert considering the outcome meaningless.}

_{Uefa currently sees no real threat from this iteration of the Super League. You just wouldn’t have guessed that from the response in Spain, where it was roundly portrayed as yet another victory for Perez. This is what he has become used to, his ambitions almost willed into existence.}

_{You only have to look at European football’s current landscape, one that now looks set to be dominated by Real Madrid for a decade. It makes it all the more of a wonder why Perez is seeking to destroy it through the Super League.}

_{This Saturday, Madrid expect to win their 15th Champions League. That would be more than double AC Milan’s seven, the next most successful club, who have been left for dust by the greater winds of football history.}

Bellingham will have to perform for England if they are to have a successful tournament in Germany.

But Makelele believes boss Gareth Southgate has to take the reins off him.

“For England he can be great, it is important for him to play the way he does with Real Madrid,” he added.

“For the national team he needs to have the capacity for the manager to give him this possibility, to have the freedom he has at Real Madrid. All the quality he has for Real Madrid he can give to England, he will need his team-mates to defend him.

“He is a clever player and he will adapt to his team-mates in the national team.”

The 20-year-old has had a remarkable debut season at the Bernabeu, scoring 23 goals in all competitions and could cap it off by winning the Champions League on home soil at Wembley tonight.

Few would have expected Bellingham to make such an impact during his first year in Spain and, with a strong performance for England at Euro 2024, Makelele thinks he could claim the biggest individual prize in the game.

“He is a future Ballon D’Or if he continues like this,” the Frenchman said. “He can take it, if he wins the Champions League and has a great Euros, I think he will be the winner of the Ballon D’Or.

“I am so impressed with what he has done. First with the quality he has, then the leadership and how he adapted to LaLiga and Madrid.

“No one has done this before. To do what he has done is amazing. A young player like this, he has many years of great football. Also for the national team it will be great to see him play.”