Real Madrid are not the best team – but of course they can win the European Cup again

This is not a betting column. I get into enough trouble suggesting Gary Neville can be the English Pep Guardiola and Gareth Bale can top-score at the Euros this summer without advising people what to do with their money, but Real Madrid at odds as long as 7-1 with some bookmakers for the Champions League. Seriously?

They are not the best team in Europe. We know that. They are not even the best team in Madrid at the moment. And all things being equal Barcelona will become the first team to win back-to-back Champions Leagues this May in Milan. But the European Cup is not always won by the best team. Inter Milan were not the best team in Europe in 2010 and Chelsea were not the best in 2012 to give two examples form the last five tournaments.

This Real Madrid side still has seven of the 11 players who lifted the trophy two years ago. Xabi Alonso and Angel Di Maria were vital to their success although they won the final without the former. But what they have lost in midfield they have maybe gained in goal where Keylor Navas is in a better moment of form than Iker Casillas was in 2014. The latter’s mistake could have cost Real Madrid in the final. The former has gone eight Champions League games without letting in a single goal.

They have the tournament’s leading scorer. Ronaldo has more than anyone else in the competition so far this season with 13, and more than anyone in the competition's history scoring his 90th UCL goal in midweek.

Madrid also have Gareth Bale back. Don’t underestimate his importance. Bale has one flaw – he can’t play a 50-game season without missing weeks through injury but when he’s fit he can do everything Ronaldo can do. Injury blip aside Bale has now scored 14 goals in his last 17 matches.

According to El Pais this week, Bale’s six-week period on the sidelines need not have been so long had the club not had him train on sand to speed his recovery. Brazilian coach Wanderly Luxemburgo installed small sand pitches at the club’s Valdebebas training ground when he briefly coached Real Madrid. Keen to use them and keen to have a picture of Bale – close to comeback – powering through the sandpit, he was asked to incorporate it into his recuperation. He did so, begrudgingly, and duly set his return back a fortnight by opening up the muscle tear in his calf.

He is now back and flying however and where once there was discord with Ronaldo it seems now there is harmony. When Ronaldo went off on his “if everyone was at my level maybe we would win the league” rant recently he name-checked Gareth as one of those key players who he prefers to play alongside. He missed the Welshman.

If Bale stays fit – and the law of averages say he has had his weeks on the treatment table for this season – and if Karim Benzema comes back in form then Madrid have a front three to strike fear into most defences. Benzema’s season has been soiled by his off-the-field problems but on it he has scored 19 goals in 20 games. Madrid also have youngsters Lucas Vazquez and Jese Rodriguez to come off the bench – scoring goals will not be a problem and despite an at times less than convincing defence, that no-goals conceded record suggests they can keep them out in Europe too.

If they are to repeat the successes of 2014, 2002, 2000 and 1998 when they won the European Cup despite, and to a degree, because of poor domestic campaigns, two things will need to happen.

They will need to find someone to do as Alonso and Di Maria did in 2014. Casemiro is not in Alonso’s league but he is more comfortable in holding midfield than Toni Kroos. And when he plays there it releases Kroos into a more creative attacking role. It’s a part he has almost forgotten how to play, such has been his exile in that more restricting position.

And the draw needs to be kind of course. If they avoid Barcelona until the final then the current odds will have been generous, if they come out of the hat with them in the quarter-final draw then maybe not so much.