May is really the cruelest month. For Liverpool Football Club and Jürgen Klopp there is something brutal, and even dark comic, in the current series of finals and last days, these thin margins like a razor at the end of a glorious and exhausting year.
Liverpool have played 62 games this season and have only lost three. Now they have one, a Champions League final of bravery against Real Madrid in Saint-Denis on Saturday night, a match that has already moved twice, displaced in a kind of Bourne franchise tour of glamorous places from the Uefa area, via Munich. , St. Petersburg and finally to Paris.
And while it may seem absurd, easy and simply wrong to say that the season will be decided by victory or defeat at the Stade de France, that nine months of something close to sporting perfection, already two trophies in depth, they will become a success or failure for a one-time match; well, that’s probably true too.
This is the beauty and cruelty of elite sports. It is also a testament to the extreme quality of this mature Klopp team. By any reasonable measure, Liverpool is already there. This team has won the Champions League. They have those deeper notes, the structures, the retreading of every surface of the club. And yet right now a final like this, a truly unique blue chip, may be what Liverpool need.
For all the maxims up to this point, there is still the feeling of an entity that has not yet found its final form, to experience its own final high. Often this is just a matter of how the accessories fall. The Champions League final victory over Tottenham Hotspur was decisive, unquestionable, masterful; but also, in the end, a Champions League final against Tottenham Hotspur. Winning the league by 18 points was a wonderful feat, but also an experience overshadowed by quarantine conditions.
Paris Saturday is something else, at least in terms of its reach. Here you have the opportunity to show the world how good this team is, in the most cinematic of all time. The big teams usually live these moments, from the evisceration of Barcelona by Milan at the height of the Sacchi-to-Capello years, to the paroxysms of Manchester United against Bayern Munich, to the cruel perfection from Barcelona in the Pep era at Wembley in 2011.
Liverpool “motivated to win” after Champions League defeat to Real Madrid in 2018 – video
This is more than just a theater. For Klopp there is a more immediate tactical note to the prospect of facing opponents of this quality. Liverpool is the favorite. At their best they are a more consistent, relentless and powerful team. With a bit of early wind behind them, there is a possibility that they may run around Madrid.
But there is also a warning note here. Liverpool’s recent record against the best teams is its only weakness. Why haven’t they won the league this season? The most obvious answer is that in six games against the other members of the top four they accumulated six draws and no goal in white. They beat Manchester City 3-2 in the FA Cup. The last time Liverpool beat a recent Champions League winner, off penalties, was 2-0 against Chelsea in September 2020.
Quick guide
The road to Paris
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Liverpool
Group B: Maximum points and few scares, as the set of Jurgen Klopp was confirmed at the head of the group with two days left. The 5-1 victory over Porto in their second match highlighted the gap and they finished 11 points ahead of second-placed Atlético de Madrid. An impromptu team beat Milan 2-1 at the San Siro in the last game.
Round of 16: Inter 0-2 Liverpool; Liverpool 0-1 Inter (Liverpool 2-1 overall victory). The final goals of Salah and Firmino got a famous victory and Inter could not recover enough at Anfield.
Quarterfinals: Benfica 1-3 Liverpool; Liverpool 3-3 Benfica (Liverpool overall 6-4 victory). Benfica came back late in the return leg, but Liverpool returned to work away from home.
Semifinal: Liverpool 2-0 Villarreal; Villarreal 2-3 Liverpool (Liverpool 5-2 overall victory). Halfway through the Ceramics Stadium the tie was unexpectedly tied. But Liverpool ignited the fire in the second half with goals from Fabinho, Diaz and Mané.
Real Madrid
Group D: The Moldovan FC Sheriff overcame the clash of the group stage by beating Real 2-1 at the Bernabeu. But Real won all other matches, including both against Inter and a 5-0 home win over Shakhtar Donetsk.
Round of 16: PSG 1-0 Real Madrid; Real Madrid 3-1 PSG (victory of Real 3-2 overall). A hat-trick from Benzema in the second half. An epic return when all seemed lost. And so it began.
Quarterfinals: Chelsea 1-3 Real Madrid; Real Madrid 2-3 Chelsea aet (victory of Real 5-4 overall). Benzema hat-trick in the first leg. Chelsea were going through 10 minutes of normal time to play the return match, but Rodrygo and then Benzema sent off the reigning champions.
Semifinal: Man City 4-3 Real Madrid; Real Madrid 3-1 Man City aet (victory of Real 6-5 overall). A tie for centuries. City won 3-1 at the Etihad and 1-0 at the Bernabeu, but Real came back both times. Two impressive goals from Rodrygo in the end brought the tie to extra time and Benzema’s penalty sealed what seemed inevitable at the time.
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In the last two months, Madrid have beaten Chelsea and City. They also beat Liverpool last year, although it is in the details of that match that a key for Saturday may be.
Finals are usually won in the middle of the field. They are often games that deepen, that test the ability to hold the ball, to assert your own rhythms under pressure. This is where Madrid has maintained its advantage in this competition. Modric-Kroos-Casemiro is an era in itself, footballers of such quality, such intelligence, so great that they can find a way to win, can spend half an hour ahead but still know that their own moments will come.
Trent Alexander-Arnold’s duel with Vinicius Junior may be crucial. Photo: David Klein / Reuters
Toni Kroos, in particular, is exhausted from the first minute these days, a footballer who seems to be running through the wet sand, but who knows that he still has the ability to affect a game of this level.
It is Madrid’s midfield that has had an advantage over Liverpool. Luka Modric and Kroos seemed to play a lighter air when they opened the scoring at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium last season, dominating possession and finding time to tie passes to this red zone behind the sides. That gap widened further in the 2018 final, when Kroos had 99 touches, Modric 90 and a Liverpool midfielder Gini Wijnaldum, James Milner and Jordan Henderson, who seems to be Modric’s favorite footballer, spent the night chasing .
There are several reasons to suspect that this can now be reversed. First, the greats of Madrid are all older. Kroos may not play if Carlo Ancelotti prefers the strong presence of the excellent Eduardo Camavinga. Secondly, it is possible that Liverpool will return to Thiago Alcântara on Saturday, their only central midfielder with the class that goes face to face with these kings of rhythm and touch. His presence, and he is in serious doubt, would be a big step forward.
Third, the Liverpool team last year had Ozan Kabak and Nat Phillips on defense, a quality dilution that affects every aspect of their game.
There is a lot of talk about Liverpool’s high defensive line, the way the fearlessness of their central defenders in maintaining this position allows Klopp to condense the game, turning the press into an act of suffocation. Madrid will have to face this pressure. And it is in this middle third where you could win and lose the game.
Liverpool coaching at the Stade de France for their third Champions League final in five seasons. Photo: Tom Jenkins / The Guardian
The highlight of Liverpool’s struggles against the best teams is the way their opponents have attacked the space behind the sides with quick passes from the center of the field. The direct confrontation between Vinícius Júnior and Trent Alexander-Arnold is the most obvious pressure point here.
Both players will look to find an advantage on this flank. The space that Alexander-Arnold deliberately leaves behind is a tactic, pushing as an attack game creator is only really a source of alarm when the midfield can’t take control, to prevent a player like Kroos has the space to find it. its range. Klopp has a choice: push his right side to his usual forward spaces, rely on the process and cover; or sit deeper, aware that Vinícius and Karim Benzema provide the most obvious shaving thread in Madrid. Either way, much of it stems from how the center holds up.
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There are other points of interest. Madrid have played a significant game in the last four weeks, the victory at home against City. Benzema and Modric have played less than 180 minutes since then. Liverpool are in excess, exhausted by their series of final things and moments of crisis.
It is unlikely to matter much. It has been pointed out that there is no return match here, that the progress of the Real has depended on dragging its way to these links. But a final like this is the final comeback. This is the overtime, the end of the game, the moment you get stuck and writhing on the wall, every choice, every doubt, every note of weakness that plays out with the brightest of looks.
Liverpool have shot at a kind of final in Paris. For Madrid this is their comfort zone, the place they have been trying to get to all season. The only question now is: who blinks with that light?