2022-2023 UEFA CL: Liverpool vs. Real Madrid

(The Guardian) Preamble
You can sum up Jürgen Klopp’s Big Cup story at Liverpool in one word. It’s not “heavy”, or “metal”; it’s not even “heavy-metal” when it’s used as an adjective. It’s “Madrid”. Liverpool beat Spurs at the Estadio Metropolitano, aka the House of Simeone, in 2019 to win their sixth title. In the other four seasons, from 2018-22, they were eliminated by Madrid’s finest: Real three times, including two finals, and Atlético in a just-before-Covid night that gets weirder with every recall. So it was no great surprise when Liverpool, who had a one-in-four chance of drawing Real Madrid in the last 16, drew Real Madrid in the last 16.

The bad news for Liverpool is that Madrid have been – please tell us there’s an award for naffest portmanteau – their Klopptonite in this competition. Also, having signed Eduardo Camavinga, Aurélien Tchouaméni and probably Jude Bellingham, Real are the reason Liverpool’s heavy-metal midfield has been frozen in time. The good news for Liverpool is that you’re only as good as your next Madrid tie. Truth is, with a fair wind and a goalkeeper swap or two, Liverpool could have won the 2018 and 2022 finals, so the teams are closer than a post-Dossena scoreline of Real 11-2 Liverpool might suggest.

“I didn’t watch [the 2022 final] back until this weekend and the thing I realised immediately was … why I hadn’t,” sighed Klopp, symbolically frisbeeing the match DVD out of the nearest open window. “It was proper torture because we played a good game and could have won – and that’s the decisive word because we could but didn’t, because they scored and we didn’t. We saw how experienced Madrid is and how little they are fussed by the fact the other team has chances … What held us back a little was the fact it was a final and we did not take enough risks in little moments. We were not adventurous enough.”

One man who will never lack adventure is the sometimes harrowingly intrepid Darwin Núñez, and Liverpool are hopeful he will recover from shoulder-knack to play some part at Anfield on Tuesday night. “So,” continued Klopp, “somebody told me – and I don’t even know if it was true – that Carlo [Ancelotti] said after the final, that [with] Liverpool it’s cool because they knew exactly what they will face.” Not anymore. Núñez – and Football Daily says this with love, having defended him since day one and misses three and four – is about as predictable as the afterlife. But even in a season when he has been incessantly ridiculed, Núñez has 11 goals and four assists in 28 games – 10 of which were substitute appearances.

Núñez’s presence – not to mention the absence of Tchouaméni, Toni Kroos and indeed Casemiro in the Madrid midfield – is among the reasons Liverpool hope that this time, more than any other, they’ll find a way to beat a team from Madrid. But Real have one or two or 14 reasons for optimism themselves. And if they put Klopp out of Big Cup again, they might even get to keep him.

Currently playing in the TTR press gantry here at Anfield...

(The Guardian) “Last year’s CL was so strange: Real Madrid won the whole thing while playing about 10 minutes of football a game, while Liverpool lost it by switching off for 10 seconds in the final, having played every minute of football possible in a season,” asys Justin Kavanagh. “So is ‘Ancelotti time’ a new concept in football, like ‘Fergie time’, except that, like in a horror movie, you just don’t know when it’s going to happen?”

Let’s at least call it ‘Carlo time’ so we can sing it like MC Hammer. You have to be careful with recency bias – this is the best aside I have written in my entire career – but I’m struggling to think of a European Cup-winning campaign with as rich a combination of drama and escapology. It’s almost enough to make you believe in fate.

(The Guardian) “Hi Web,” says Peter Oh. “It’s too soon to call Stefan Bajcetic Stevie B, isn’t it?”

It is if you remember the UK top 40 in March 1991.

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