They haven’t forgotten Rafa made them look foolish

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.