Boasting stops as Real get serious
FORGET about those T-shirts with the big No 13 on the front — there will be no complacency from Real Madrid going into the Champions League final. It looked arrogant when Madrid players pulled on those shirts soon after the whistle against Bayern but the message was only ‘let’s go for the 13th’. Facing Liverpool, Real know they have a game on their hands. History, Jurgen Klopp and Mo Salah tell them as much. The last time Madrid lost a European Cup final, it was against Liverpool. Madrid know, too, that the last time they underestimated Liverpool they ended up looking foolish. Before the teams met in the Champions League last 16 in 2009, Real Madrid’s acting president Vicente Boluda used the phrase les vamos a chorrear which translates as ‘we are going to p*** on them’. Boluda elaborated: ‘At home we will win 3-0. At their place they will open up and we will win 2-1.’ Instead, Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez masterminded a 5-0 aggregate win with a stunning 4-0 victory at Anfield. Memories of those matches are fresh and yesterday’s sports newspapers focused on Madrid’s last European Cup final defeat. The 12-time winners have beaten Juventus (twice), Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen and Atletico Madrid (twice) since but in 1981 in Paris they lost to Alan Kennedy’s 82nd-minute winner. There is respect for Liverpool’s attacking style — for its architect Klopp and its finest exponent Salah. The Liverpool boss was once considered for the Madrid job — when Carlo Ancelotti was sacked in 2015 — while Salah would be a dream signing. Madrid know he will be priced out of reach this summer and saw how stubbornly Liverpool kept Philippe Coutinho long enough to ensure he was cup-tied in Europe, ruining Barcelona’s campaign. Liverpool also won respect for what they did to Manchester City but, despite all that, Madrid see the Champions League as their competition. They expect to win in Kiev and, as Roma’s goals went in on Wednesday, that conviction only deepened.
They haven’t forgotten Rafa made them look foolish