During the coverage of UEFA Champions League 2021/2022 there were several accusations of negative coverage of non-English football teams, including Real Madrid, circulating on social media forums. Were these isolated incidents or is this a pattern among British publications? This study investigates the representations of one of those non-English football teams. Specifically, how three British newspapers with varying political leanings and types of journalism covered Real Madrid’s path to victory in the 2021/2022 UEFA Champions League tournament. These publications are The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Athletic. This study draws on the appraisal model as a linguistic tool to analyze the attitudinal language of the articles. The attitudinal language that is being expressed has the potential to position the readers to positively view Real Madrid’s pathway to victory and accept them as worthy winners, or reject them as unworthy winners, and rather allude to luck. The selected fourarticles belong to March 2022 to June 2022, during the knockout phase of UEFA Champions League 2021/2022. The findings indicate that the political orientations of The Guardian andThe Telegraph do not bear a relevance. Furthermore, all three publications mainly emphasize emotions, dramatization, and individual skills. The third publication, The Athletic, a sportsbased publication, differs from the traditional publications of The Guardian and The Telegraph, in the sense of the positive attitudinal language towards Real Madrid’s tactics in contrast to The Guardian and The Telegraph alluding to luck.