Everyone thinks this year’s Champions League final will be a classic. And they’re probably right
Predictions are a mug's game in sport. But that rarely staves off the temptation.
Key points:
- Champions League final kick-off time 4.45am (EAT), Olimpiyskiy Stadium, Kiev
- Real Madrid are looking to win third tile in a row, their 13th in total
- Liverpool playing in their first final since 2007, they last won in 2005
Liverpool and Real Madrid this weekend face off in the Champions League final. The consensus is of a classic simply waiting to happen.
Many a sporting final has failed to meet such expectation. This one, however, is not short of supporting evidence to justify the pre-match billing.
A clash of European titans. Superstars in form on both sides. The holders and serial winners against a side who will counter with, as their own manager once described his preferred approach, "heavy metal football".
Even those with agnostic feelings towards the world game may be richly rewarded for setting their alarm clock for the painfully early hours of Sunday morning.
A large part of that optimism rests with Liverpool's charismatic, heart-on-the-sleeve manager, Jurgen Klopp.
To describe Klopp as animated on the touchline would be a grand understatement.
He kicks every ball. Joins in every on-field celebration he can. Some he probably shouldn't. A whirling dervish of wide-eyed fervour.
His critics brand it an affectation. Attention-seeking. Those who know him well attest to his authenticity.
External Link: Liverpool CL Final Salah highlights: tweet
Even before this drama-filled run from pre-qualification to the final he had won the hearts of Liverpool fans after his 2015 move to Anfield.
In the city he found kindred spirits.
Emotional football lovers who seek passion as much as silverware. Supporters raised on glories of the past desperate for someone to lead them back to the summit of European football, where they have stood on five previous occasions.
Playing on the front foot
His methods have been as important to that connection as results on the pitch.
At his previous club, Borussia Dortmund, where he spent seven years and won two league titles as well as losing a Champions League final, he was at the vanguard of a German tactical revolution called "gegenpressing".
The philosophy is a simple one, though demanding in its execution.
Virtue is placed in the winning back of the ball as quickly as possible after it is turned over, hunting in packs to harry and chase down opponents to recover possession high up the pitch while the opposition team has little time to set their defensive organisation.
It is thrilling to watch. Football played on fast forward. But it can be risky.
The front-loaded tactic can expose the defence, an area of relative weakness compared with the stunning array of attacking weapons Liverpool boasts.
A front three of Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Mo Salah have scored 29 goals between them in this year's Champions League, two more than Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar — arguably the game's most celebrated attacking triumvirate — in Barcelona's 2015 title win.
Victory this weekend would see Klopp make good on his promise to return Liverpool to the European elite.
If built around a routinely exceptional Salah performance, the Egyptian's odds of winning this year's Ballon d'Or, the prize for the world's best player, would shrink.
For any of that to happen, however, they will need to combat not just a Real side replete with world stars and managed by an all-time great in Zinedine Zidane, but the forces of history.
History on their side
Real Madrid are habitual Champions League winners.
Liverpool fans are rightly proud of their five European titles, the biggest haul of any British team. But their love affair with the competition is almost reduced to mere flirting when set against Real's record.
On 12 occasions the Spanish giants have been crowned European champions. No other team is in double figures.
They had a healthy head start, winning the first five editions from its inception as the European Cup in 1956. But accusations of historical weighting to their success, of a club taking advantage of others' slowness to engage with the tournament, have been undermined of late.
This weekend's final will be their fourth in five years. They have won the previous three.
External Link: Real Madrid road to Champions League Final: tweet
There exists a self-fulfilling prophecy about Real and this competition. Only once in the last six seasons have they been champions of their own country. But in Europe they just know how to win.
In their quarter-final they needed a contentious injury time penalty to fend off a comeback from Juventus, losing 3-1 at home after winning 3-0 away. A German goalkeeping howler helped them edge past an unlucky Bayern Munich in the semi-finals.
And yet, here they are. As they always are.
And favourites, thanks to experience and the embarrassment of riches they have in their squad.
Gareth Bale, a $150m signing from Tottenham in 2013, will likely start from the bench. The attack will be led by Cristiano Ronaldo, a four-time Champions League winner named the world's best player four times in the last five years.
Salah has been rightly lauded for an incredible season. Ronaldo is on another plane.
Zidane may have been merely backing his team when he said this week that he would take no player from Liverpool, even Salah, over that which he has at his disposal.
But that he could say it with a straight face speaks of the talent the club boasts.
It's anybody's game
So, will experience or exuberance win the day? The glory and intrigue of the contest is that no-one really knows.
Both teams have the players to hurt the other. Either side could rain goals on the other. Both might.
What is certain is that neither side will seek to simply negate the threat of their opponent. They will trust their own qualities to take them to glory.
And that, more than anything, offers the potential of a contest befitting the prize on offer.
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