Goals will flow in final as Klopp’s Liverpool eyes snatching Real’s crown
To Juergen Klopp, Saturday’s anticipated Champions League final will rest on whether Real Madrid’s drive to win a third successive title outstrips Liverpool’s desire for its first since 2005.
“They will want to do it again. It would be big 100 percent. If we did it, it would be big, too. We will try,” said Liverpool’s manager with an understatement at odds with his belief that his team will succeed.
The narrative of young pretenders challenging the established order appeals to Klopp, who made his name taking aim at Bayern Munich with Borussia Dortmund, but Liverpool is hardly an ingénue when it comes to winning European titles.
Victory on Saturday would bring the Reds’ sixth European Cup and reinforce their status as by far England’s most successful team in the competition. Predictably, advice from their legion of past winners has flowed all week.
To Steven Gerrard, hero of the 2005 win over AC Milan, Liverpool must simply seize the moment; to Alan Kennedy, who scored the goal which beat Real in the 1981 European Cup final it is about courage; to Kenny Dalglish, a three-time winner in 1978, 1981 and 1984 the secret lies in understanding how to react when the pressure bites.
With pedigree like that, Liverpool is rather more than a cocky upstart out to take a swipe at Real, and it will be a surprise if Klopp does not keep faith with the free-flowing brand of soccer that has made his side the competition’s leading scorer with 40 goals.
Porto, Manchester City and AS Roma were all blown away in the knockout stages with stunning first-leg performances that delivered 13 goals, most from the Reds’ frontline trio of Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah, the Egyptian maestro whose 44 goals have spearheaded their season.
Liverpool tends to score in bursts, often in the first half, and if it seizes the initiative on Saturday, Real may struggle to play catch up against a team never so dangerous as when it defends.
But the English side is unlikely to have it its own way against the serial winner from Spain.
Another triumph would make Real the fourth team to claim three successive European crowns – and the only ones to do it twice – while Cristiano Ronaldo is hoping to become the first player in the Champions League era to win five titles, four with Real.
Already the tournament’s record scorer, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner netted in every Champions League game this season before twice missing out in the 4-3 semifinal aggregate triumph over Bayern Munich when he struggled to assert himself.
Ronaldo’s double in Real’s quarterfinal win over Juventus suggests Liverpool would do well not to write him off just yet and its promising but inexperienced fullbacks Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold will have to be at their sharpest to deal with his threat and that of Gareth Bale, if he starts.
Whether they will be sufficient to withstand the force of Europe’s most successful but aging team is one of Saturday’s most intriguing sub-plots, as is Klopp’s ability to finally emerge a winner after five successive defeats in finals.
In reaching this far, Liverpool has overcome a series crippling injuries and the mid-season departure of star midfielder Philippe Coutinho.
To negotiate that and end up with the biggest prize of all would certainly assure it a place in Anfield’s bulging hall of fame.