Aside from Ronaldo, obviously, I can see Isco and Modric causing us problems. Quality players.
Get in the mood
- Thread starter rurikbird
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I'm sure we could squeeze you guys in mate, we do live in a much much bigger house than we had last time you stayed dude.
If you're serious I'll speak to Bex & square it with her.
Mrs Athens is up the duff, the due date is 10th of June.
I'll be hoping that she doesn't go into labour on the day/night of the final. Ideally she could go into labour a few days before the final so I can enjoy a few beers while watching it.
I was thinking about calling the child Niki if it's a girl, after the Greek goddess of victory...
I'll be hoping that she doesn't go into labour on the day/night of the final. Ideally she could go into labour a few days before the final so I can enjoy a few beers while watching it.
I was thinking about calling the child Niki if it's a girl, after the Greek goddess of victory...
Camp and furnace?
Congratulations.
Number two?
I was thinking there myself.
There's now 6 of us going out (me & mates), but obv if scm are doing a drinkies it'll be one big fuck off blended menagerie of cunts.
Not so bad so. 4 hours of pre drinking iron Bru
Call the baby (boy or girl) Mosalah after the CL final hattrick hero
You need to promise us to call the baby after whoever scores the winning goal for us in the final. Even if it's a girl who will be named Dejan 🙂
Cheers. Yes, number two and the final one!
Cheers boss.
If it's called Mosalah then they will make fun of the child by calling it Taramosalata!
I'm not sure I can keep that promise. How about Deaysean instead?
Haha - great thread title for when Mo is flirting with Barca/Real/PSG "Tara Mo Salah"
*makes note*
[article]
Ill, unemployed, unwanted: The incredible player stories behind Liverpool's march to the Champions League final
MELISSA REDDY
In 2012, Sadio Mane was in the process of transferring from Metz to Red Bull Salzburg for just over £3 million, when one of his representatives - transfixed on the Senegal international during a training session - declared to those around him watching on: “Pay close attention. He will be playing on the biggest stage there is soon, no question.”
That same year, an unemployed Andy Robertson had tweeted “life at this age is rubbish without no money, #needajob,” and at the start of the annum, Mohamed Salah was still in Egypt with El Mokawloon.
Over on Merseyside, Jordan Henderson was hoping to use a Europa League fixture against Anzhi Makhachkala to prove he deserved to remain at Liverpool. The midfielder had been offered to Fulham in a failed part-exchange for Clint Dempsey the previous summer and did not want a similar fate to follow in the winter window.
Hoffenheim’s Roberto Firmino was a complete non-entity in Brazil, while Trent Alexander-Arnold hadn’t even hit puberty. Loris Karius had hit a ceiling at the Etihad and decided to make his loan move from Manchester City to Mainz permanent.
Virgil van Dijk, meanwhile, was battling a potentially lethal abdominal abscess. “I was seriously ill,” the centre-back, then at Groningen, recalled. “The doctors said it was very, very dangerous.
“I lost around 15 kilograms (33 pounds). I had poison in my system and the abscess almost burst. It was dangerous and I was in hospital for 12 days.”
Fast forward, and last May, Van Dijk was among the 65,842 in attendance at the Millennium Stadium as Real Madrid secured a 4-1 win over Juventus, lifting their third Champions League trophy in four years.
In 23 days, the spectator hopes to turns spoiler on club football’s grandest stage as he looks to ensure that number does not extend to four in five for Zinedine Zidane’s men as Liverpool - against all the odds and conventional wisdom - have the opportunity to land a sixth European Cup.
"I watched the Champions League final last year in Cardiff with a very good friend of mine,” Van Dijk said at the Stadio Olimpico with Roma in the rear view and the Spanish giants awaiting them in Kiev.
“To be in the final now, it’s special. I was hoping for it while there. But to be in it just one year later, it’s amazing.”
It is. Not just for Van Dijk, but for all his team-mates with their varying pathways to this career-defining point. The reason they are here - Champions League finalists - is owed to their collective commitment to the blueprint and each other, which is underpinned by the conviction Jurgen Klopp has shown in the group.
Take Dejan Lovren, for example. Pilloried before the German arrived on Merseyside and ever since, the Croatian’s belief remains unshakeable. Why? Klopp has repeatedly highlighted in one-to-one talks that while there are facets of his game that require improvement, Lovren has all the ingredients every recruiter seeks in a centre-back.
“He changed many things in the club, not just the players, but things around the club," the 28-year-old said. "The people, he has changed the mentality, changed how we think.
“Everything is more positive now. Even when we sometimes don’t play good, he always finds something good - there is not just negativity.”
And as such, it is not solely the players that are owed this stage, but Klopp and his support staff too. One of the manager's early messages after succeeding Brendan Rodgers at the helm was that leaning on tradition and continuously discussing the Champions League were not the tools to get Liverpool back at the top table.
“You have to fight for it, not just talk about it,” he said on October 9 2015, when he also vowed that under him the players would “conquer the ball, each f**king time. We will chase the ball. We will run more, fight more.”
Liverpool have been involved in two European campaigns since then, reaching the final in both and dispatching the likes of Manchester United, Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City in the process.
“He deserves this,” Lovren said of Klopp. “It is not accidental that he already reached the final of the Champions League in 2013 with Dortmund. “He has given the club pride back. Everyone feels that and everyone lives that. Everyone should be proud that we have a manager like him.”
Klopp has fostered a “one voice, one vision, one family” environment that has seen Liverpool continuously step up this season despite setbacks in the form of the sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona in January, a punishing list of unavailable players and most recently the absence of his long-time assistant, Zeljko Buvac.
“That this group went to the final is exceptional,” the Reds boss admitted. “We had all the knocks over the season, all the knocks with injuries in the wrong moments and stuff like that. Really difficult.
"These boys are constantly over their limit. Constantly. I am really proud of that. We came into the competition as a qualifier and are now in the final. I’m really, really happy for the boys, really happy for the club, really happy for our fans. It was a fantastic ride so far and now we will go to Kiev, which sounds crazy – but it’s the truth."
The togetherness has not just extracted greater responsibility from individual players, but was also the foundation of the emotive scenes in front of the away fans at the Stadio Olimpico following the final whistle on Wednesday night.
The supporters have been an incredible backdrop to Liverpool’s European crusade this season, with Klopp remarking before the trip to Rome that “the team and the crowd have grown together.” His appreciation was delivered in two doses in the Italian capital, before and after his post-match media duties, where it was painted on his face and pulsated through his fist pumps.
“It was really, really, really, really good seeing all of these happy faces. It’s the best thing that football can do,” Klopp explained.
“These people have followed us all over Europe, come to Anfield every week, create atmospheres which are absolutely exceptional and we all know how big their desire is to come back on the winning track. “They have had such a big part of that in the season so far.”
A topless Trent Alexander-Arnold, having thrown his shirt into the crowd as a thank you, received a scarf from a supporter in return and giddily swirled it over his head as he bounced and joined in the chorus of Allez, Allez, Allez. The 19-year-old Scouser claimed a red bucket hat as a souvenir too, posing in it for a group snap that screamed ‘Hello, hello. Can you hear us? We’re in the Champions League final!’.
Lovren, meanwhile, crowned the night of fans that had made the journey all the way from Connecticut by holding aloft a 'LFC New Haven' scarf. He then offered an invitation - via a live Instagram video - around a dressing room flooded with exhilaration.
"Everybody was dancing, like crazy,” explained Mane. “Everybody was so happy, we enjoyed the moment together. It was special to be in that dressing room, it was such an incredible moment.”
The most powerful portrait of the night, though, the one that spotlighted the fact that this team gets it, gets their people, gets the very genetic code of the club was the scene of team huddled behind a banner of support for Sean Cox, the father of three who is still in critical condition after being attacked ahead of the first-leg of the semi-final at Anfield.
Henderson had pleaded with the stewards to allow the players to retrieve the flag so they could pay tribute to one of their own too. To show that they were with him and he was with them. The thoughts of the players, after the biggest moment in their careers to date, was with the 53-year-old and his loved ones.
That is Liverpool. This is Klopp’s Liverpool. And Liverpool are in the Champions League final.
“We’re not going there to lose,” said Van Dijk. “We know we have a lot of quality and so they need to be wary of what we can do. We need to be wary of what they can do.”
Mane added:"We do have a lot of respect for Madrid, they are one of the best teams in the world, but we are Liverpool – we are strong, we can beat any team in the world. We believe that. So we believe we can go there and beat them.
"We know we are going to go there and fight, for the fans, for the clubs, and fight without fear. We have the players. We can score goals, we have shown that, and there is nothing to be afraid of.”
That is Liverpool. This is Klopp’s Liverpool. And Liverpool are in the Champions League final.
[/article]
Ill, unemployed, unwanted: The incredible player stories behind Liverpool's march to the Champions League final
MELISSA REDDY
In 2012, Sadio Mane was in the process of transferring from Metz to Red Bull Salzburg for just over £3 million, when one of his representatives - transfixed on the Senegal international during a training session - declared to those around him watching on: “Pay close attention. He will be playing on the biggest stage there is soon, no question.”
That same year, an unemployed Andy Robertson had tweeted “life at this age is rubbish without no money, #needajob,” and at the start of the annum, Mohamed Salah was still in Egypt with El Mokawloon.
Over on Merseyside, Jordan Henderson was hoping to use a Europa League fixture against Anzhi Makhachkala to prove he deserved to remain at Liverpool. The midfielder had been offered to Fulham in a failed part-exchange for Clint Dempsey the previous summer and did not want a similar fate to follow in the winter window.
Hoffenheim’s Roberto Firmino was a complete non-entity in Brazil, while Trent Alexander-Arnold hadn’t even hit puberty. Loris Karius had hit a ceiling at the Etihad and decided to make his loan move from Manchester City to Mainz permanent.
Virgil van Dijk, meanwhile, was battling a potentially lethal abdominal abscess. “I was seriously ill,” the centre-back, then at Groningen, recalled. “The doctors said it was very, very dangerous.
“I lost around 15 kilograms (33 pounds). I had poison in my system and the abscess almost burst. It was dangerous and I was in hospital for 12 days.”
Fast forward, and last May, Van Dijk was among the 65,842 in attendance at the Millennium Stadium as Real Madrid secured a 4-1 win over Juventus, lifting their third Champions League trophy in four years.
In 23 days, the spectator hopes to turns spoiler on club football’s grandest stage as he looks to ensure that number does not extend to four in five for Zinedine Zidane’s men as Liverpool - against all the odds and conventional wisdom - have the opportunity to land a sixth European Cup.
"I watched the Champions League final last year in Cardiff with a very good friend of mine,” Van Dijk said at the Stadio Olimpico with Roma in the rear view and the Spanish giants awaiting them in Kiev.
“To be in the final now, it’s special. I was hoping for it while there. But to be in it just one year later, it’s amazing.”
It is. Not just for Van Dijk, but for all his team-mates with their varying pathways to this career-defining point. The reason they are here - Champions League finalists - is owed to their collective commitment to the blueprint and each other, which is underpinned by the conviction Jurgen Klopp has shown in the group.
Take Dejan Lovren, for example. Pilloried before the German arrived on Merseyside and ever since, the Croatian’s belief remains unshakeable. Why? Klopp has repeatedly highlighted in one-to-one talks that while there are facets of his game that require improvement, Lovren has all the ingredients every recruiter seeks in a centre-back.
“He changed many things in the club, not just the players, but things around the club," the 28-year-old said. "The people, he has changed the mentality, changed how we think.
“Everything is more positive now. Even when we sometimes don’t play good, he always finds something good - there is not just negativity.”
And as such, it is not solely the players that are owed this stage, but Klopp and his support staff too. One of the manager's early messages after succeeding Brendan Rodgers at the helm was that leaning on tradition and continuously discussing the Champions League were not the tools to get Liverpool back at the top table.
“You have to fight for it, not just talk about it,” he said on October 9 2015, when he also vowed that under him the players would “conquer the ball, each f**king time. We will chase the ball. We will run more, fight more.”
Liverpool have been involved in two European campaigns since then, reaching the final in both and dispatching the likes of Manchester United, Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City in the process.
“He deserves this,” Lovren said of Klopp. “It is not accidental that he already reached the final of the Champions League in 2013 with Dortmund. “He has given the club pride back. Everyone feels that and everyone lives that. Everyone should be proud that we have a manager like him.”
Klopp has fostered a “one voice, one vision, one family” environment that has seen Liverpool continuously step up this season despite setbacks in the form of the sale of Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona in January, a punishing list of unavailable players and most recently the absence of his long-time assistant, Zeljko Buvac.
“That this group went to the final is exceptional,” the Reds boss admitted. “We had all the knocks over the season, all the knocks with injuries in the wrong moments and stuff like that. Really difficult.
"These boys are constantly over their limit. Constantly. I am really proud of that. We came into the competition as a qualifier and are now in the final. I’m really, really happy for the boys, really happy for the club, really happy for our fans. It was a fantastic ride so far and now we will go to Kiev, which sounds crazy – but it’s the truth."
The togetherness has not just extracted greater responsibility from individual players, but was also the foundation of the emotive scenes in front of the away fans at the Stadio Olimpico following the final whistle on Wednesday night.
The supporters have been an incredible backdrop to Liverpool’s European crusade this season, with Klopp remarking before the trip to Rome that “the team and the crowd have grown together.” His appreciation was delivered in two doses in the Italian capital, before and after his post-match media duties, where it was painted on his face and pulsated through his fist pumps.
“It was really, really, really, really good seeing all of these happy faces. It’s the best thing that football can do,” Klopp explained.
“These people have followed us all over Europe, come to Anfield every week, create atmospheres which are absolutely exceptional and we all know how big their desire is to come back on the winning track. “They have had such a big part of that in the season so far.”
A topless Trent Alexander-Arnold, having thrown his shirt into the crowd as a thank you, received a scarf from a supporter in return and giddily swirled it over his head as he bounced and joined in the chorus of Allez, Allez, Allez. The 19-year-old Scouser claimed a red bucket hat as a souvenir too, posing in it for a group snap that screamed ‘Hello, hello. Can you hear us? We’re in the Champions League final!’.
Lovren, meanwhile, crowned the night of fans that had made the journey all the way from Connecticut by holding aloft a 'LFC New Haven' scarf. He then offered an invitation - via a live Instagram video - around a dressing room flooded with exhilaration.
"Everybody was dancing, like crazy,” explained Mane. “Everybody was so happy, we enjoyed the moment together. It was special to be in that dressing room, it was such an incredible moment.”
The most powerful portrait of the night, though, the one that spotlighted the fact that this team gets it, gets their people, gets the very genetic code of the club was the scene of team huddled behind a banner of support for Sean Cox, the father of three who is still in critical condition after being attacked ahead of the first-leg of the semi-final at Anfield.
Henderson had pleaded with the stewards to allow the players to retrieve the flag so they could pay tribute to one of their own too. To show that they were with him and he was with them. The thoughts of the players, after the biggest moment in their careers to date, was with the 53-year-old and his loved ones.
That is Liverpool. This is Klopp’s Liverpool. And Liverpool are in the Champions League final.
“We’re not going there to lose,” said Van Dijk. “We know we have a lot of quality and so they need to be wary of what we can do. We need to be wary of what they can do.”
Mane added:"We do have a lot of respect for Madrid, they are one of the best teams in the world, but we are Liverpool – we are strong, we can beat any team in the world. We believe that. So we believe we can go there and beat them.
"We know we are going to go there and fight, for the fans, for the clubs, and fight without fear. We have the players. We can score goals, we have shown that, and there is nothing to be afraid of.”
That is Liverpool. This is Klopp’s Liverpool. And Liverpool are in the Champions League final.
[/article]
Jurgen Klopp’s thrash metal style strikes a chord with English ideal
Created by a German and given a dusting of genius by an Egyptian, Liverpool are oddly indigenous in their style
Jürgen Klopp has talked about mining the deep roots of English football culture while building a team who have the European Cup in their grasp. Photograph: Alessandro Garofalo/NaFoto/Silverhub/REX/Shutterstock
According to Benjamin Disraeli Rome symbolises the ideal of conquest. Not quite yet, it doesn’t. Liverpool may have earned their moments of unbound joy inside the Stadio Olimpico on Wednesday, capped by a lovely interlude as Jürgen Klopp went bowling through the security lines to exchange a little joyful energy with the Liverpool fans, waving his arms like a drunken dad at Christmas, all goofy warmth and unaffected pleasure in a shared achievement.
But as Klopp pointed out, nothing has been settled just yet. The run to the final has had its memorable subplots. From James Milner’s elevation to the status, on the season’s stats, of most creative player in the history of modern European football. To the sustained excellence of Andy Robertson. To the spectacle of players as diverse as Loris Karius and Ragnar Klavan blocking it out en route to a Champions League final.
Still, no permanent mark has been made and certainly Real Madrid will present a different kind of obstacle. For the first time this season Liverpool face a meeting with European aristocracy. Deep down Real will see them as extras in this show, a disposable piece of ballast, there to provide a backdrop to the imperial parade.
Yet for all that it is perhaps time to park thoughts of Kiev and wallow just a little in the moment, because Klopp is wrong in one sense. Something significant has already been achieved just by making it to this stage. First for Klopp himself; and second for English football, so angst-ridden in its endless search for things such as identity and purpose, for the right DNA, the right borrowed suit of clothes.
Yes: it’s time to talk about Jürgen – and about us. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply and acts boldly. That was also Disraeli but it could at a pinch be a Klopp-ism, just without the guffaws and the swearing and the slang, a Victorian translation of one of those asides tossed into his rambling late-night press conferences where you sit up and think, hang on, what did he just say?
Liverpool have been down this road but the boldness, the deep feeling of this team, is Klopp’s own work. This is a manager who has done that rare thing of rebuilding a team entirely in his own image in the space of two years and eight months. Klopp signed eight of the Liverpool players on the pitch in Rome and gave another his professional debut. There is nothing in this team that isn’t basted in his juices. Liverpool lost their best (inherited) player in January and still got better on the back of it – got a new best player, a better best player.
Play Video
2:11
Liverpool v Real Madrid: their European head-to-head record – video
Klopp has always been a systems manager. He remains wedded to his founding revelation at Mainz that the right tactics implemented correctly can beat better players, a theme he has returned to often in the current run.
This is the other big thing about this Liverpool team in a Champions League final. As Emlyn Hughes once said: “The greatest good you can do for another is not to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.” Actually that was also Disraeli but it captures Klopp’s potential to affect English football more widely.
Real are fitting opponents in this sense. Liverpool’s 4-0 defeat of pre-Ronaldo Madrid in March 2009 is an overlooked staging point in the modern history of European club football. It was after seeing their team physically overpowered by Gerrard and Mascherano, Kuyt and Carragher (and also Babel, Spearing and Dossena) that Real made a slight change of policy, re-gearing to match the power of the Premier League. That summer 13 players left. Cristiano Ronaldo arrived, as did Karim Benzema and Liverpool’s own Xabi Alonso and Álvaro Arbeloa.
That Premier League intensity had revealed something to Real, offered a route to further riches. The hope now is that Klopp’s example may do something similar for English football. Like it or not Liverpool are deeply Premier League, oddly indigenous in their style.
This is a distinction, not a judgment. For all the brilliance of Manchester City, it is a fact that the Pep Guardiola system is entirely its own entity – no less or no more valid, but with its own distinct fascinations and contrasts. Whereas Liverpool’s hard-pressing, chancy physicality just feels like an unusually good fit with the strangely persistent texture and tone of the game in this country, the way qualities such as pace and power and the eagerness to play at speed still emerge even through the prism of Premier League cosmopolitanism.
Perhaps this idea of shared identity should not matter: football is a global, borderless entity now, existing only in that square of green. But the notion of different footballing cultures, of an English way, certainly matters to Klopp, who has spoken in these pages of the benefits of mining that source, of exploring its deep roots. There were seven English players on the pitch at various times over the two legs and at its most intense the Klopp thrash-metal style just feels like it should be English.
Before the quarter-final Fernandino had called Liverpool a long-ball team, which clearly is not true but does reflect the rather overlooked synergy between the pressing style and classic direct football of the 1950s. Both are designed to provide creativity out of broken play, whether through airborne assault or well-drilled pressing, the kind of attack that can feed like a shoal of piranhas off a state of engineered disorder.
This is what Premier League football looks like, at least in the hopeful imagination, or could or should look like. That is has been created by a German, led from the front by a Brazilian and a Senegalese and given a dusting of genius by an Egyptian only adds to the gaiety.
Perhaps Liverpool really will be able to assert their own strengths in Kiev, to summon up the fury of the Red Zone. Some will pore fretfully over the weaknesses in Liverpool’s backline, albeit these are mirrored in Real’s own regally dozy approach to the common mud of marking and tracking back.
One other thing, though: a one-off final suits Liverpool much better than the more unforgiving exam over two legs. Finals can be crazy, adrenal things, there to be wrenched away in a fateful 20-minute surge. Now, who does that remind you of?
Created by a German and given a dusting of genius by an Egyptian, Liverpool are oddly indigenous in their style
Jürgen Klopp has talked about mining the deep roots of English football culture while building a team who have the European Cup in their grasp. Photograph: Alessandro Garofalo/NaFoto/Silverhub/REX/Shutterstock
According to Benjamin Disraeli Rome symbolises the ideal of conquest. Not quite yet, it doesn’t. Liverpool may have earned their moments of unbound joy inside the Stadio Olimpico on Wednesday, capped by a lovely interlude as Jürgen Klopp went bowling through the security lines to exchange a little joyful energy with the Liverpool fans, waving his arms like a drunken dad at Christmas, all goofy warmth and unaffected pleasure in a shared achievement.
But as Klopp pointed out, nothing has been settled just yet. The run to the final has had its memorable subplots. From James Milner’s elevation to the status, on the season’s stats, of most creative player in the history of modern European football. To the sustained excellence of Andy Robertson. To the spectacle of players as diverse as Loris Karius and Ragnar Klavan blocking it out en route to a Champions League final.
Still, no permanent mark has been made and certainly Real Madrid will present a different kind of obstacle. For the first time this season Liverpool face a meeting with European aristocracy. Deep down Real will see them as extras in this show, a disposable piece of ballast, there to provide a backdrop to the imperial parade.
Yet for all that it is perhaps time to park thoughts of Kiev and wallow just a little in the moment, because Klopp is wrong in one sense. Something significant has already been achieved just by making it to this stage. First for Klopp himself; and second for English football, so angst-ridden in its endless search for things such as identity and purpose, for the right DNA, the right borrowed suit of clothes.
Yes: it’s time to talk about Jürgen – and about us. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply and acts boldly. That was also Disraeli but it could at a pinch be a Klopp-ism, just without the guffaws and the swearing and the slang, a Victorian translation of one of those asides tossed into his rambling late-night press conferences where you sit up and think, hang on, what did he just say?
Liverpool have been down this road but the boldness, the deep feeling of this team, is Klopp’s own work. This is a manager who has done that rare thing of rebuilding a team entirely in his own image in the space of two years and eight months. Klopp signed eight of the Liverpool players on the pitch in Rome and gave another his professional debut. There is nothing in this team that isn’t basted in his juices. Liverpool lost their best (inherited) player in January and still got better on the back of it – got a new best player, a better best player.
Play Video
2:11
Liverpool v Real Madrid: their European head-to-head record – video
Klopp has always been a systems manager. He remains wedded to his founding revelation at Mainz that the right tactics implemented correctly can beat better players, a theme he has returned to often in the current run.
This is the other big thing about this Liverpool team in a Champions League final. As Emlyn Hughes once said: “The greatest good you can do for another is not to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.” Actually that was also Disraeli but it captures Klopp’s potential to affect English football more widely.
Real are fitting opponents in this sense. Liverpool’s 4-0 defeat of pre-Ronaldo Madrid in March 2009 is an overlooked staging point in the modern history of European club football. It was after seeing their team physically overpowered by Gerrard and Mascherano, Kuyt and Carragher (and also Babel, Spearing and Dossena) that Real made a slight change of policy, re-gearing to match the power of the Premier League. That summer 13 players left. Cristiano Ronaldo arrived, as did Karim Benzema and Liverpool’s own Xabi Alonso and Álvaro Arbeloa.
That Premier League intensity had revealed something to Real, offered a route to further riches. The hope now is that Klopp’s example may do something similar for English football. Like it or not Liverpool are deeply Premier League, oddly indigenous in their style.
This is a distinction, not a judgment. For all the brilliance of Manchester City, it is a fact that the Pep Guardiola system is entirely its own entity – no less or no more valid, but with its own distinct fascinations and contrasts. Whereas Liverpool’s hard-pressing, chancy physicality just feels like an unusually good fit with the strangely persistent texture and tone of the game in this country, the way qualities such as pace and power and the eagerness to play at speed still emerge even through the prism of Premier League cosmopolitanism.
Perhaps this idea of shared identity should not matter: football is a global, borderless entity now, existing only in that square of green. But the notion of different footballing cultures, of an English way, certainly matters to Klopp, who has spoken in these pages of the benefits of mining that source, of exploring its deep roots. There were seven English players on the pitch at various times over the two legs and at its most intense the Klopp thrash-metal style just feels like it should be English.
Before the quarter-final Fernandino had called Liverpool a long-ball team, which clearly is not true but does reflect the rather overlooked synergy between the pressing style and classic direct football of the 1950s. Both are designed to provide creativity out of broken play, whether through airborne assault or well-drilled pressing, the kind of attack that can feed like a shoal of piranhas off a state of engineered disorder.
This is what Premier League football looks like, at least in the hopeful imagination, or could or should look like. That is has been created by a German, led from the front by a Brazilian and a Senegalese and given a dusting of genius by an Egyptian only adds to the gaiety.
Perhaps Liverpool really will be able to assert their own strengths in Kiev, to summon up the fury of the Red Zone. Some will pore fretfully over the weaknesses in Liverpool’s backline, albeit these are mirrored in Real’s own regally dozy approach to the common mud of marking and tracking back.
One other thing, though: a one-off final suits Liverpool much better than the more unforgiving exam over two legs. Finals can be crazy, adrenal things, there to be wrenched away in a fateful 20-minute surge. Now, who does that remind you of?
Hehehehe. Ramos just did a Lovren.
Real Madrid star Sergio Ramos isn't worried about Liverpool's Mohamed Salah in Champions League final
Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos has claimed he isn't overly concerned about the prospect of facing Liverpool's Mohamed Salah in the Champions League final.
The Reds will meet the 12-time winners and current holders in the Kiev final on May 26 after coming through against Roma on Wednesday night in the Stadio Olimpico.
Key to Liverpool 's chances of a sixth European Cup will be the form of 43-goal Salah , and the Egyptian's blistering displays this term has seen many champion his Ballon d'Or credentials .
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah (right) in action during the match against Roma
However, Los Blancos skipper Ramos stated he isn't worried about Salah, saying he is used to pitting his wits against the planet's best forwards.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror, the 2010 World Cup winner said: "We have seen what Salah can do this season, but he will just be one of eleven players we face against Liverpool.
"Throughout my career, I have faced the best forward players in the world - many of them who are considered among the greatest ever.
"For me, there is never a fear. A respect, yes, but never a fear."
Real Madrid are hoping for a third straight Champions League triumph in Ukraine later this month, and the influential centre-back is confident they can win their 13th European Cup against Jurgen Klopp's men.
"We can’t be arrogant but we can be confident. We know it is in the DNA of Real Madrid to win the Champions League," added Ramos.
"We are ready to defend our title for a second time — we won’t let it go easily."
Real Madrid star Sergio Ramos isn't worried about Liverpool's Mohamed Salah in Champions League final
Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos has claimed he isn't overly concerned about the prospect of facing Liverpool's Mohamed Salah in the Champions League final.
The Reds will meet the 12-time winners and current holders in the Kiev final on May 26 after coming through against Roma on Wednesday night in the Stadio Olimpico.
Key to Liverpool 's chances of a sixth European Cup will be the form of 43-goal Salah , and the Egyptian's blistering displays this term has seen many champion his Ballon d'Or credentials .
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah (right) in action during the match against Roma
However, Los Blancos skipper Ramos stated he isn't worried about Salah, saying he is used to pitting his wits against the planet's best forwards.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror, the 2010 World Cup winner said: "We have seen what Salah can do this season, but he will just be one of eleven players we face against Liverpool.
"Throughout my career, I have faced the best forward players in the world - many of them who are considered among the greatest ever.
"For me, there is never a fear. A respect, yes, but never a fear."
Real Madrid are hoping for a third straight Champions League triumph in Ukraine later this month, and the influential centre-back is confident they can win their 13th European Cup against Jurgen Klopp's men.
"We can’t be arrogant but we can be confident. We know it is in the DNA of Real Madrid to win the Champions League," added Ramos.
"We are ready to defend our title for a second time — we won’t let it go easily."
I can't wait to see Ramos just standing there, staring, that shell-shocked look upon his face, at the ball blasting into the net & wondering how the fuck Salah just did that, with the first ripple of genuine terror about exactly what he's facing for the next 87 minutes of football starting to creep in.
So thats 6 then?
I've got LFC tv so I've watched the semi final like 5 times already 😀
He's watched it five times...
He's watched it five times...
In his gaff in Melbourne, he's watched it five times!
He's watched it five times...
In his gaff in Melbourne, he's watched it five times!
I've also just noticed how nangolan knew it was a goal for Mane way before he scored.
Had his hands up in the air.
Funny to watch
Had his hands up in the air.
Funny to watch
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