McNulty, Phil (15 July 2018). “France 4-2 Croatia”. McNulty, Phil (26 May 2018). “Real Madrid 3-1 Liverpool”. McNulty, Phil (27 February 2022). “Chelsea 0-0 Liverpool”. 2022 County Data Sheet, Monmouth County, New Jersey. Summerscales, Robert (28 May 2022). “Carlo Ancelotti Becomes Most Successful Manager In Champions League History”. The team reached their third consecutive Champions League semi-finals, though Borussia Dortmund beat Real in the first leg 4-1 with Robert Lewandowski scoring four goals, leading Dortmund manager Jürgen Klopp to remark that it was a historic night for his club, saying, “That was like Robin Hood taking from the rich” (Dortmund had previously gone with an expensive group of largely foreign players but after almost going bankrupt had restructured back to financial health largely via young home-grown players). On 22 June, Kovačić provided an assist to his teammate Ivan Rakitić as he scored Croatia’s third goal in a 3-0 win over Argentina in their second group stage match of the tournament. Five days later, despite an opening goal from Benzema, Madrid lost 1-4 to Valencia away from home, while giving up three penalties and an own goal. Though Real Madrid had already won two European Cups in 1998 and 2000 under the presidency of Lorenzo Sanz, Sanz lost his re-election bid to Pérez.
After the international break, Madrid lost a home game to Cádiz 0-1 on 17 October. Real Madrid was also somewhat notoriously unlucky in its league campaigns throughout these nine years, finishing runners-up with 96, 92 (twice), and 90 points, as well as on 87 points in third place, just three off the league winners – despite better international records, Real was still behind Barcelona in the La Liga. This period of buying allowed Real Madrid to enjoy their finest era of dominance, winning twelve La Liga championships and six European Cups. Joining a football club is considered an effective way of learning the different ways and styles of playing football in a short period of time. By the time of the census of 2016, there were 529,374 inhabitants living in 158,627 households. However, Beckham was returned to the team during the second half of the season, and was widely considered by many to be one of their better performers at the time.
