LAST week, the president of Real Madrid, Lorenzo Sanz, seemed to make it clear in public that he would be sacking his team coach, Jupp Heynckes, once the European Champions Cup final was completed.

Yesterday morning, Senor Sanz looked in the mirror and saw a face covered in egg. The world is a better place for the happenings of the past couple of days.

Sanz apparently had decided that the poor league form of his team as they fell well behind their fierce rivals, Barcelona, was too bad to be accepted, even as Heynckes steered the side towards the final of the Champions' Cup.

On Wednesday night, the German coach saw his team beat Juventus 1-0 and end the 32-year gap since the club had won the biggest prize available to European football teams. It is not difficult to imagine the silent message he sent to his club leader.

''Madrid can breathe again. At last we are champions of Europe again and a new era has begun for us,'' was the Sanz quote after a goal by Yugoslav striker Predrag Mijatovic secured the club's seventh success in the tournament, but the first since 1966.

''This can be the first of many European successes for Real. Until now we have been enthralled and held back by our past,'' added Sanz, who now appears to be about to re- consider the future of coach Heynckes after the German's first season in charge.

Even so, the betting is that, Heynckes will barely have had time to recover from the champagne hangover before he is shown the exit door from the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.

No-one would be drawn into the debate after the win on Wednesday, least of all Heynckes, who became exasperated with questions on his immediate future.

''I am the wrong man to be speaking to about this,'' he said, ''Talk to my president. I am enjoying this success. It is a great day for this club and the future can wait for now.''

Real's five successive wins in the first five European Cup finals from 1956-60, and their sixth in 1966, were all achieved before 13 of the 14 players who appeared on Wednesday were born. The odd man out, captain Manuel Sanchis, was only a year-old at the time of the last victory.

Lifting the trophy again has become the one single ambition dominating the Real psyche since the sixties but, while they have at last made it, the success means far more than restoring the pride of the Spanish capital's finest.

It will give this famous old club the chance to work on the huge debts - said to be as much as #50m - that have accumulated over the years. As European champions, they will be in a position to try to regain some financial stability.

Sanz has already said that the whole squad is available for transfer, while there has been talk of selling the great stadium that has assumed legendary status and building one out of town.

For now, that glorious evening in the ArenA Stadium in Amsterdam will allow the white-shirted successors to Puskas, Di Stefano et al, to hold their heads high.

Mijatovic's goal devastated Juventus who, from the moment they strutted out of their coach on arrival, gave the impression that by appearing they had done enough. For two periods, at the start of each half, they looked like a team about to sweep the Spaniards aside, but they did not drive home their advantage, missed chances, and were then dumped by a piece of opportunism from the Slav.

While Real went into the record books for their seventh title, Juventus created a record they would rather have missed.

They became the first side ever to lose two successive European Cup finals following their defeat to Borussia Dortmund in Munich.

Meanwhile, one man who reckoned the Spaniards deserved to succeed was Brazilian Ronaldo, but he did have a word of sympathy for his opposite number at Juventus, Alessandro Del Piero.

''I feel very sorry for him,'' the Brazilian is reported as saying after watching the final on TV.

''It's been a tough end to the season. Del Piero has been one of the stars of 1998 and for what he's done up to now he didn't deserve to lose.''

However, the 21-year-old Inter-Milan player, who will get superstar billing when he turns out against Scotland in the opening game of the World Cup next month, acknowledged that the better side had won on the night.

''The really fantastic player for me was defender Roberto Carlos. He's Brazilian, but he fought like an Italian. A final like that one is an honour for football.''