Pre Match - Real Madrid - CL FINAL - Sat 20:00

[i_rushie]

The whole season we been playing that high line which requires our world class defence to play their almost always impeccable offside trap, and after that, we hope our world class goalkeeper does his thing.

RM played a low block which required their fairly good defence to defend for their lives, and after that, hoped their world class goalkeeper do his thing, which he did.

There's nothing lucky about both, but only one game plan was executed to perfection.

 

[Squiggles]

Some day after ramblings. Not in the mood to watch the highlights, so some of this maybe shite.

You cannot expect a team to not score in open play in three finals and expect to win all of them. Madrid had weeks to prepare tactically and mentally for us. They're like a better Spurs in so many ways, and we didn't beat them either. Clinical, counter attacking teams who can defend solidly will always be our nemesis and its why Klopp is getting tired and frustrated of the play style in interviews. It's frustrating because he's bought 2 excellent attacking signings in Diaz and Jota, but it's not fully clicking in the bigger games or against the best opposition. Burnley won more games against the top sides in the PL this season, which is a ridiculous stat given our points total and something the coaching and management needs to work on

If Trent and Robertson aren't able to stretch the play and put crosses in, and Thiago isn't it his play making best, then Bobby really needs to be on the pitch. I thought we looked much more cohesive at an attacking unit when he came on. Keita has a mixed performance, although some of the good has clearly been dismissed on here. We were playing shorter, more intricate passes around their box and they were struggling.

I don't think we pressed particularly hard on the first half. They're very good with the ball but we struggled to pin them back and get everything clicking until later on. Maybe it was the pitch, or just tiredness, but it had more of an international football pace to it at times and that didn't suit us.

Konate was extremely dominant and justified his place.

We probably all would have picked the same team as Klopp beforehand and much his subs were the right ones. Just think Bobby should have been on sooner after their goal.

 

[Hyena]

We haven't been at our best for weeks, but thought we weren't too bad today. RM played well too. Thought the Defence for both sides did their jobs, it was a game of fine margins.

Losing to RM 1-0 in a final is a sad but acceptable result. It's not like we drew with Brentford or Everton.

 

[Frogfish]

Some day after ramblings. Not in the mood to watch the highlights, so some of this maybe shite.

You cannot expect a team to not score in open play in three finals and expect to win all of them. Madrid had weeks to prepare tactically and mentally for us. They're like a better Spurs in so many ways, and we didn't beat them either. Clinical, counter attacking teams who can defend solidly will always be our nemesis and its why Klopp is getting tired and frustrated of the play style in interviews. It's frustrating because he's bought 2 excellent attacking signings in Diaz and Jota, but it's not fully clicking in the bigger games or against the best opposition. Burnley won more games against the top sides in the PL this season, which is a ridiculous stat given our points total and something the coaching and management needs to work on

If Trent and Robertson aren't able to stretch the play and put crosses in, and Thiago isn't it his play making best, then Bobby really needs to be on the pitch. I thought we looked much more cohesive at an attacking unit when he came on. Keita has a mixed performance, although some of the good has clearly been dismissed on here. We were playing shorter, more intricate passes around their box and they were struggling.

I don't think we pressed particularly hard on the first half. They're very good with the ball but we struggled to pin them back and get everything clicking until later on. Maybe it was the pitch, or just tiredness, but it had more of an international football pace to it at times and that didn't suit us.

Konate was extremely dominant and justified his place.

We probably all would have picked the same team as Klopp beforehand and much his subs were the right ones. Just think Bobby should have been on sooner after their goal.

Agree with everything bar the highlighted section. Our press was superb against a team of their passing quality and was the reason we looked so dominant for 20-25 mins in the first half.
BTW : Burley, Moreno and Nicol on ESPN all thought the same - great pressing in the first half. Tiredness clearly affected us in the 2nd half however when the speed to press was noticeably not there up front.

 

[Frogfish]

Just a few musings :

Our Defence (8/10) : was generally superb, Trent switched off for one critical moment and Konate should have just hoofed it out when Benzema was offside. Otherwise we allowed just 4 shots (2 on target) against the much vaunted Vinicius / Benzema partnership that have extremely impressive stats this season, and that when Madrid had 46% of the possession too. Trent did very well in his 1:1 matchups vs Vinicius (as did Konate who was superb overall).

RM Defence (7/10) : Carvajal outdid himself with probably his best game of the season. Militao also did well. However they still permitted 24 shots of which 9 were on target - so they didn't do THAT well did they.

Courtois (10/10) : enough said already but the Xg was 2.14 to 2.6 so to keep us out was an unbelievable match-winning performance.

Our Midfield (7/10) : The attacking & defensive stats tells us most of what we need to know. Hendo had an excellent game, Thiago for the most part too constantly recycling and pushing us forward. Fabinho outstanding. Keita had a couple of brain farts when he came on but was also effective in threading passes through a mass defence (though naturally sometimes being wasteful to be expected when operating against such a deep defence).

Their Midfield (6/10) : Casemiro aside (and then only in the tackle) they were dominated, unable to prevent us attacking and ineffective in attack. Nice touches by Modric (one good pass the basis for their goal-scoring attack) but mostly ineffectual. Kroos a passenger as an attacking force and spent most of his time helping out Casemiro. Painfully slow in closing down our midfield.

Our Attack (7/10) : Diaz was let down by Robbo/Mane not playing the pass in behind on numerous occasions he made the run but he was also well marshalled by Carvajal and Militao. Mane was unlucky not to score, a fantastic piece of skill to work the space and a cracking shot. An inch in Courtois' stretch being the difference between in off the post or that world class save.
Mo also a little unlucky too (Owen thought there was nothing more he could have done with that last effort that drew yet another world class save). Jota just a fraction off the right contact to score late on when Courtois saved again.
However again - 24 shots and 9 on target would normally have been enough to win us the match.

Their Attack (4/10) : For the most part totally negated. Just 4 shots. The numerous out balls to Vinicius were mostly gobbled up by Konate or Trent. Benzema didn't get a sniff. The Vinicius goal was more about Trent's lack of concentration than the tap in from what some are calling a shot that turned into a cross (not sure TBH).

I understand that with emotions high some posters are slagging off some of our players but TBH I didn't see any of them do much wrong bar Robbo + Trent's crossing accuracy was poor.

 

[The Nomad]

Fair play to Sky.. they are pinning the blame mainly on the organisation and the French police.

 

[tomasjj]

Agree with everything bar the highlighted section. Our press was superb against a team of their passing quality and was the reason we looked so dominant for 20-25 mins in the first half.
BTW : Burley, Moreno and Nicol on ESPN all thought the same - great pressing in the first half. Tiredness clearly affected us in the 2nd half however when the speed to press was noticeably not there up front.

Question is if we should have not pressed as usual or not. Tail end of a draining season, against a technicslly very sound team. Also two midfielders just back from injury. Dont think thiago should have started. Left us half a man short.
We have looked jaded for a while.

We can talk about stats and 29 shots , but i counted 3 big chamces, two or three for them as well.

So, maybe we were unlucky, but we also made some questionable calls.

 

[Hansern]

Waking up this morning and feeling more enraged about what fellow reds endured at the game then the result. But its quite clear that the season was a few to many games for long for us.

Virgil, Fabinho and Thiago patched up for the final, Mane and Salah tired from a grueling long season and the anti climax from last weekend when we were so close to winning the title.
Diaz is the perfect example and he looked so short of being at his best. Played his 74th game yesterday which is just insane.

This team is something special but it just shows how difficult it is to fight on all 4 fronts.
Hopefully we focus on the PL and CL next season. A long cup run in the League cup is something that we dont need.

 

[Piedro]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is on French police more than the UEFA, no? There were no comparable issues that I know of in Madrid, Kyiv, Athens or Istanbul. The local authorities are the ones to blame here.

It’s a shit location for a game like this. First of all it’s a fucking ghetto by the ground. Every local was was out in force either trying to bunk in past the security checks or trying to pickpocket us. I saw hundreds of locals getting dragged out the turnstile queue by stewards or even our fans at some point.

Basically you had to show your ticket at one checkpoint at the bottom of the concourse but by 7.45 local time, that had gone out the window. People were just climbing up over the walls to avoid the check. That led to probably 20k more people on the concourse at our end that there should have been. It was fucking scary being in that crush.

Istanbul was fine, as it was in the middle of no where, you couldn’t get involved in any sort of crush.

Kiev was fine as there was only about 30k Liverpool fans there, you had to show your ticket 3 times to get in, plus the army was everywhere so we were on our best behaviour.

Madrid again was fine due to the stadium location on the outskirts of the city, big wide open spaces so no crushes plus 2 x ticket checks before the turnstiles.

This was a shitshow due to the stadium location, the locals, the police, plus we had a shitload of our lads bunking in too.

Cheers for all the well wishes anyway lads, glad to be out ok, it was fucking retrying though I’m not gonna lie.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[tombrown]

I didn't see people bunking in. Not saying it didn't happen, just didn't see it. What i saw was a complete lack of ticket checks on the approach (like they had in Madrid) then when i got to my allocated gate Z it was locked. Got to the front was getting crushed against the bars while the stewards and police just looked and refused to answer any questions. In the end a few fans who were in came over and told us gate A was open. Managed to get out of the crush and go to gate A, where there were thousands of fans and one narrow gate which they were letting through 1 at a time ... So guess what - another crush. There were families with kids in there.
Eventually got through the gate, had my ticket scanned and then asked which way to my seat - and was told to go anywhere i wanted. Had to argue with them to point me in the right direction as i was meeting my mates lad there.
A friend who i had got seperated from got in about 30 minutes after me, somehow managed to find me. He said when he eventually got in they had given up checking tickets.
Couldn really enjoy the match after that. I said on here last night it was as bad as Hillsborough ... that was my anger, obviously it wasnt that bad though it was close. It was all i could think of while in the crush.
Fuck UEFA. Fuck the french riot police... They seemed to be itching for a fight, especially near the end of the match when they came out in force behind the goal.

 

[Bradley]

Sounds horrible. Glad that it appears everyone got out without serious injury.

It was hard to tell but it did seem that the Liverpool end was a bit muted. I assumed that was because of the way the game was going but it sounds like a lot of people had just been through something traumatic and knew they would face similar on the way out.

 

[tomasjj]

Was there none of this at the Madrid fans ends?

 

[737Max]

Was there none of this at the Madrid fans ends?

A few incidents in the Madrid queue I saw in twitter but nothing on the scale our fans faced

 

[StevieM]

….A long cup run in the League cup is something that we dont need.

I think this is very over-stated - out key players only played in the final - the league cup is great for getting the squad players proper competitive action, which can keep them sharp.

The FA Cup too - loads didn’t play until the Semi’s.

Besides… I want us to win everything.

 

[Frogfish]

Toni Kroos asked on German TV if he was surprised about Liverpool dominating.
"You had 90 minutes and you come up with two shit questions," and walks away from the interview. "Two negative questions, you can tell right away that you're German."

 

[The Nomad]

Toni Kroos asked on German TV if he was surprised about Liverpool dominating.
"You had 90 minutes and you come up with two shit questions," and walks away from the interview. "Two negative questions, you can tell right away that you're German."

I like Kroos. But the interviewer was not wrong.

All he needed to say was "no, we knew how they were going to approach the game, we have a game plan, executed it perfectly, we will be remembered as the champions. Nothing else".

 

[Bradley]

Just watched the highlights on YouTube, so many saves but very few great saves.

A lot of chances that just didn't get a solid connection, on another day Salah, Mane and Jota could have had a goal each.

Anyway. Onwards.

 

[RobbySwanson]

Patiently waiting on our traditional CL runner up consolation prize of announcing a midfield signing from Monaco.

 

[Halmeister]

Patiently waiting on our traditional CL runner up consolation prize of announcing a midfield signing from Monaco.

He's going to Real

 

[Hansern]

I think this is very over-stated - out key players only played in the final - the league cup is great for getting the squad players proper competitive action, which can keep them sharp.

The FA Cup too - loads didn’t play until the Semi’s.

Besides… I want us to win everything.

It doesnt work like that. Its 12 more games were you have to prepare, travel and be part of a squad even if you dont play.
I wouldnt mind winning the FA cup again, but the league cup I'm not bothered about for a while.

 

[i_rushie]

We haven't beaten a top team that was prepared to park the bus all season, while leaking goals to them. Chelsea and Spurs in the league. Now RM. I hope there's an innovation in our tactics next season.

 

[StevieM]

It doesnt work like that. Its 12 more games were you have to prepare, travel and be part of a squad even if you dont play.
I wouldnt mind winning the FA cup again, but the league cup I'm not bothered about for a while.

What preparing did the likes of Salah do? I mean, they put clothes on - as opposed to sitting around at home in their underwear, I suppose.

The furthest we travelled was London or probably Norwich - and most of our FA Cup games were at home.

Travelling for the domestic cups isn’t exactly a chore.

So nah… I’m not buying that.

I can understand how the CL games would be draining with travelling and prep.

It’s probably the travelling and prep for international matches, for those playing in them, that’s more of a drain than domestic games.

 

[RobbySwanson]

He's going to Real

Who Fabregas? Bit controversial after his ties with Barca!

 

[jimmycase]

Sad that this'll be remembered for us being treated like animals like back in the 80s. The fanzone scenes earlier in the day were great, but Im so glad I didnt take our lad now.

Real worthy champions? Not really. Were crap, defensively solid, scored by doing very little really, which hurts as Courtois made some decent stops.

 

[Buddha]

Am I the only one who remains pretty much convinced that their goal was at least half a yard offside? I thought it at the time and then any highlights reel I’ve seen confirms it for me.

The fact that we didn’t get to see re runs or the var line-drawing at the time (or since, anyone?) adds to my mystification about it.

I’m amazed at the general apathy about it.

 

[Fabio]

Am I the only one who remains pretty much convinced that their goal was at least half a yard offside? I thought it at the time and then any highlights reel I’ve seen confirms it for me.

The fact that we didn’t get to see re runs or the var line-drawing at the time (or since, anyone?) adds to my mystification about it.

I’m amazed at the general apathy about it.

I didn't think it was offside at all. I hoped and prayed it was, but no.

 

[jimmycase]

I thought it was close enough to at least get the lines out but I didn't see any shots from the sideline that showed it. The replay (halfway down the page) looks just on but a dodgy angle. Trent ball watching is just so bad.

https://www.caughtoffside.com/2022/...real-madrid-into-ucl-final-lead-vs-liverpool/

 

[Buddha]

I thought it was close enough to at least get the lines out but I didn't see any shots from the sideline that showed it. The replay (halfway down the page) looks just on but a dodgy angle. Trent ball watching is just so bad.

https://www.caughtoffside.com/2022/...real-madrid-into-ucl-final-lead-vs-liverpool/

Thanks for adding the link. It’s a better angle than I’ve seen and looks like at point of contact, Trent’s foot probably played him onside.

Shot or cross!?

 

[The Nomad]

Thanks for adding the link. It’s a better angle than I’ve seen and looks like at point of contact, Trent’s foot probably played him onside.

Shot or cross!?

Yes Trents foot is playing him onside. Was a full fuck up by Trent.

 

[Frogfish]

Yes Trents foot is playing him onside. Was a full fuck up by Trent.

Got to say when you see that position Valverde is in .. there is no way he was thinking of crossing that to the back post, that was a shot as some commentators called.