KIEV HEARTACHE
was going in with such positivity, to win it. The fans were amazing, the team was confident and then you realise you are not going to win it. Such sadness comes with it.
“It was even more emotional as a goalkeeper because we can relate to our team-mate,” he added. “That whole day was full of highs and lows and then trying to grasp and get over it for a week. If it had not been such a highlighted game – the biggest game in Europe – then you just say ‘it happens to anyone’. But the stage was so big that you can’t know what that’s like. I have not yet played in a Champions League final. That makes it much harder to get over, I guess.”
What happens next with Karius remains to be seen. It’s difficult to see him playing again for Liverpool amid
ADAM BOGDAN reports linking the club with a move for Roma’s Brazilian keeper Allison Becker.
Sadly this is how it is for goalkeepers. Bogdan is already reconciled to his time at Anfield having run its course. He is excited at this next chapter in his career, in a country he remembers visiting as a seven-year old with his father. “My father had an idea that he wanted me to speak English – he did a good job but he should not have sent me to Inverness!” he said.
With Ofir Marciano still recovering after finger surgery, Bogdan is likely to make his competitive debut for Hibs in the Europa League qualifier with NSI Runavik at Easter Road next week. He will then go from the Champions League final to sampling the less intense atmosphere of the Faroe Isles seven days later in the second leg.
“Liverpool didn’t start the Champions League campaign in Kiev,” he noted. “Two season ago we played in Switzerland in Sion and also in Kazan. You have to be humble and be ready for the opposition you face.” Uefa will re-examine an investigation into Paris Saint-germain’s finances which was closed last month.
Uefa says judges on its club finance monitoring panel will review a decision by investigators that PSG’S accounts to June 2017 complied with “Financial Fair Play” rules.
The rules oversee spending on transfers and wages by all clubs which qualify for the Champions League and Europa League. Uefa can exclude clubs in serious cases.
The review adds pressure on the French champions who Uefa asked last month toraisecashsellingplayers before their latest financial year closed last weekend.
PSG then sold midfielder Javier Pastore to Roma last week for €24.5 million to help balance accounts made lopsided by the world-record deal to buy Neymar from Barcelona last August.
Uefa investigators also said Qatar-owned PSG overstated the market value of sponsor deals from the emirate.
PSG bought Neymar for a world-record £198m from Barca and then secured France international teenager Kylian Mbappe from Monaco.
The Mbappe deal was described as a season-long loan followed by £166m payment – a ruse many critics saw as a means to circumvent FFP spending limits – while the Neymar swoop provoked fury in Spain, with Laliga president Javier Tebas suggesting PSG were “urinating in the swimming pool”.
“It was too much for the heart! It was emotionally unbelievable because we were so positive”