Failure against Bayern was still painful a year later. If something is important to you then you have to be prepared to suffer

“It’s not about having the better individual, usually it’s about playing the better football.

“For that to happen, you need all the others as well.

“Mo played a fantastic season, but Cristiano has played 15 seasons like this and has scored something like 47,000 goals! Crazy numbers!

“But why should we compare? At the time of Pele, nobody compared Pele to other players and asked, ‘Is he as good as him?’

“Now we have Messi and Ronaldo. They have dominated football for a few years and there are so many other good players.

“Messi and Ronaldo are in the final moment very often in the right position to score a goal – and that’s the most difficult thing to do in the world. That’s why they are where they are.

“The Ballon d’or is always between them. It’s welldeserved. When they stop playing football, we will miss them, 100 per cent.” JURGEN KLOPP was sitting by the pool of his Las Vegas hotel. It was May 24, 2014.

In the background, he could hear the Champions League final – but he just couldn’t bring himself to go and watch it.

A year earlier, Klopp and his Borussia Dortmund team were in an all-german final against Bayern Munich at Wembley.

The memories of that defeat were still too raw.

Klopp is not big on looking back. But he knows one thing as he prepares Liverpool for a Kiev showdown with Champions League kings Real Madrid – he’s in no hurry to experience that disappointment again.

The Kop boss recalled: “Real Madrid played Atletico Madrid in 2014, I was in Vegas on holiday by the pool and a lot of people were watching it. I couldn’t.

“I was kind of annoyed by hearing the noise, I had no clue who had scored or anything about the game.

Hurt

“I really tried to ignore it because it hurt, it was still painful after what had happened the year before. I was just thinking, ‘one year ago it was different, we were in the final’. We are all human beings, it is not nice. But even being there is unbelievable.

“Most people try their whole life and don’t go to one final because you need luck in specific moments.

“I haven’t watched our final back since then, but when it comes up you realise that was the last time when I really suffered.

“That is absolutely OK. If something is really important for you, then you have to be ready for suffering. That is how life is.”

Klopp has got an outstanding record of getting Dortmund and Liverpool to major finals – but has gone on to win just one out of six.

He won one of four finals with Dortmund, even suffering defeat in the German Cup final in his last game at the club.

His first season at Anfield saw defeat by Manchester City in the League Cup final and a 3-1 loss to Sevilla in the Europa League final.

Klopp added: “It’s not nice when you lose a final but I will