By Philip Cornwall PREDRAG MIJATOVIC may just have saved Jupp Heynckes' job. The Yugoslav's goal midway through the second half secured Real Madrid's seventh European Cup, their first since 1966, to go some way to atone for the fourth place in the Spanish League which means coach Heynckes still faces an uncertain future. But for Juventus, the Italian champions, there is the agony of a second consecutive final defeat. The only goal of a surprisingly open game that promised many more came in the 66th minute. A cross from the Madrid right broke to Roberto Carlos on the left wing. He hit a misdirected, but hard, cross, which a Juve defender tried to clear with his right foot. It cannoned off his left, into the path of Mijatovic, who stepped past the floundering Angelo Peruzzi and fired into the net from a narrow angle. European club football's showpiece game opened brightly with Juventus, pre-match favourites, on top. Both sides, though, were soon passing and tackling sweetly, and a dozen minutes passed before a foul was committed. After the disappointing football in the two previous European finals this season, this was a refreshing change. The Amsterdam Arena pitch undoubtedly played a part: relayed last week, it was a much better playing surface than the bumpy meadow Chelsea and Stuttgart had to contend with seven days earlier. Madrid had one excellent first half chance, when Raul couldn't get any angle on his shot just outside the near post, hitting a cross from the left parallel to, rather than into, Peruzzi's net. At the other end, Juventus shots that did find the target also located goalkeeper Bodo Illgner. As half time approached, the tackling became ragged. Fernando Hierro, who had played well at both ends and stung the hands of Peruzzi with a drive, was first in the book for a harmless looking tackle on Alessandro Del Piero that seemed fair. There was less argument about the yellow cards shown to Roberto Carlos, who had been outstanding in the Madrid defence, and Juve's Edgar Davids. The Dutchman looked to be heading for a possible early bath soon afterwards for another foul on countryman Clarence Seedorf, but Helmut Krugg, the German referee, merely issued a final warning. The second half started evenly, but seemed to swing in the Italians' favour on the hour. Firstly, Filippo Inzaghi chested a cross up for himself, before cracking in a firm volley - but it was whistled over Illgner's bar. Then a retaken free kick rebounded to Inzaghi eight yards out. The German keeper had moved to near his right to cover the initial strike, leaving the left of the goal at Inzaghi's mercy, but he didn't realise he had time to place his shot, snatched at it, and again found Illgner. Juve looked like winners - but not like scorers. Madrid looked like both shortly after as Mijatovic made the most of his good fortune. Juventus almost equalised within seconds, Del Piero's cross from the left finding Inzaghi at the near post but, like Raul from virtually the same spot in the first half, he could only hit the ball straight and narrowly wide. From looking in control, the Italians were now looking at the watch. Coach Marcello Lippi started throwing substitutes at the problem, but the best chance fell to Davids. He half-controlled a clearance and chased after the ball around defenders until he made space for himself on the penalty spot but he too could only smack the ball into Illgner's body. There were more bookings, a large-scale altercation on the stroke of 90 minutes, but no more serious threats to the Madrid goal. There was one moment of farce at the end when Seedorf, one dreadlocked Dutchman, clashed once more with Davids, another. The referee momentarily forgot that it was the Juventus player who had been booked earlier - and indeed got away with that bad challenge on Seedorf and, after showing the Madrid midfielder yellow, waved the red. The mistake was quickly rectified, and no sooner was the free kick cleared than Seedorf was celebrating with his teammates. Juventus become the first team to lose the Champions Cup Final in consecutive years, with French midfielder Zinedine Zidane completing a hat-trick of European final defeats having lost the 1996 UEFA Cup Final with Bordeaux. For the Spanish, though, it was the end of a long wait for a team synonymous with what, to many, will always be the European Cup. JUVENTUS: Peruzzi, Torricelli, Montero, Iuliano, Di Livio (Tacchinardi 46), Deschamps (Conte 78), Davids, Pessotto (Fonseca 71), Zidane, Del Piero, Inzaghi. Booked: Davids, Montero REAL MADRID: Illgner, Hierro, Sanchis, Panucci, Roberto Carlos, Raul (Amavisca 90), Karembeu, Seedorf, Redondo, Mijatovic (Suker 90), Morientes (Jaime 82). Booked: Hierro, Roberto Carlos, Karembeu, Seedorf Att: 47,500 Referee: Helmut Krug (Germany)

TV REVIEW And A Fact ITV Missed   ON A lesser scale, it was a big night for Clive Tyldesley as well as Real Madrid in Amsterdam last night. The ITV man stepped up to replace the retiring Brian Moore, knowing that a good performance would cement him as the network's No 1 commentator. Moore will cover the World Cup Final, then hang up his mike. Tyldesley was blessed with a good game of football for his first major final unlike Barry Davies, who in 1994 had the misfortune to land the first goalless World Cup Final. From the start, it was clear that Clive was going to try to take advantage of the exotic names on show. On a night when neither Terry ‘Jew-vay' Venables or Bob ‘Oooh-vay' Wilson could even get the name of one of the teams right, the commentator was keen to call every player as accurately as he could. The longer the name, the better it rolled off his tongue, Angelo di Livio and Alessandro Del Piero coming in for especially fine treatment. The three syllables of Hierro, however, were so clipped that they sounded like a sigh carried away on the wind. All this concentration on foreign names soon took its toll, though, on his English. Del Piero was not a prolific scorer, but a prolife-ic one, perhaps suggesting a tendency to campaign militantly against abortion. Helped by the pace of the game, Tyldesley generally turned in a competent performance. The same could not be said of Kevin Keegan. At one point he was midway through an attack on a refereeing decision, when the replay forced him into a grudging retraction. Then when speculation turned to whether Real would still sack Heynckes, Keegan expressed amazement that it was even possible. Tyldesley, alas, didn't ask what Ray Wilkins felt like, getting the bullet between the end of the season and the play-offs. Keegan wasn't even especially eccentric, with nothing to match last year's I tell you what Brian, I love the colour of those shirts . As he retires, Moore will be glad to know that some things never change. As ever, the British angle was sought out relentlessly. At one point, Tyldesley got very excited that Hierro had been signed to the club when John Toshack was in charge. And the evening ended, inevitably, with Bob Wilson looking forward to the World Cup by pointing out that the last time Real Madrid won the European Cup was, of course, 1966. EUROPEAN CUP WINNERS WITH DIFFERENT CLUBS ONE statistic ITV missed out on was that last night's victory for Real Madrid in the Champions League Final meant that one of football's most exclusive clubs had two new members. Before yesterday's match, only eight players knew what it was like to celebrate winning the European club crown in the colours of two different teams. But Predrag Mijatovic's 66th minute winner allowed his Madrid team-mates Christian Panucci and Clarence Seedorf to add to the winners' medals they had won with previous clubs AC Milan and Ajax respectively. The club would have got bigger last night whatever the result because Juventus' Edgar Davids played alongside Seedorf in the Ajax side that shocked Milan three years ago. The full list: Miodrag Belodedici Steaua Bucharest 1986; Red Star Belgrade 1991 Ronald Koeman PSV Eindhoven 1988; Barcelona 1992 Frank Rijkaard AC Milan 1989 & 90; Ajax 1995 Vladimir Jugovic Red Star 1991; Juventus 1996 Dejan Savicevic Red Star 1991; AC Milan 1994 Marcel Desailly Marseille 1993; AC Milan 1994 Didier Deschamps Marseille 1993; Juventus 1996 Paulo Sousa Juventus 1996; Borussia Dortmund 1997 Christian Panucci AC Milan 1994; Real Madrid 1998 Clarence Seedorf Ajax 1995; Real Madrid 1998

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