All eyes on Paris: Liverpool vs Real Madrid Champions League final preview

Four years on from facing each other in Kyiv, the two teams are very different beasts.

Here we are again, for the third time in five years, counting down the hours before Liverpool play in yet another Champions League final. It comes as no surprise that they’ve reached this point once more, such are the astronomical standards we’ve all become so accustomed to with Jürgen Klopp and this team, but it’s a feat which shouldn’t for one second be taken for granted. 

It’s the final frontier of what has been a physically and emotionally exhausting, but absolutely exhilarating 63-game campaign. In the end, the Premier League title wasn’t quite to be, but with two trophies already in the cabinet, if Liverpool are able to do what they need to do in Paris and win their seventh European Cup, it would really rubber stamp the 2021/22 campaign as one of the greatest, possibly even the greatest, in the club’s 130-year history. 

For Real Madrid, it’s a fifth final in the past nine seasons, and a chance to win the competition for a 14th time. As Champions League finals go, you could hardly pick a more enticing, heritage-laden match-up between two bona fide European heavyweights. 

Inevitably, much of the build up will revolve around the 2018 final, and, from a Liverpool perspective, the chance to seek revenge for that harrowing night in Kyiv. When you look at the 22 players likely to take to the pitch on Saturday night, though, it’s striking just how much has changed for both teams over the past four years. 

Of the Real Madrid side that emerged victorious that night, led by Zinedine Zidane, probably only five players will start this time round: Dani Carvajal, Casemiro, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric and Karim Benzema. While they obviously possess bags of experience and quality, it’ll be intriguing to see how Carvajal and the veteran midfield trio fare from a physical point of view against a vastly superior Liverpool side to the one they faced four years ago.

It was especially noticeable in the astonishing semi-final comeback against Man City just how much more dynamic Real Madrid looked following the introduction of 19-year-old Eduardo Camavinga and Marcos Asensio as substitutes. Carlo Ancelotti will almost certainly go with experience from the start, but Liverpool will need to be wary of Real’s ability to completely change the profile of their midfield from the bench. 

Since Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure, meanwhile, Benzema has morphed into arguably the finest striker in world football, flanked to his left by the technical brilliance, agility and frightening pace of Vinicius Junior, who brings a very different dimension to the Real Madrid attack – a threat Liverpool will no doubt have spent plenty of time preparing for. Fede Valverde will most likely occupy a hybrid role on the right-hand side of the front three, regularly dropping back to add an extra body in midfield when required. 

At the back, Ferland Mendy, David Alaba and Eder Militao look set to complete the back four alongside Carvajal – a defensive unit which was torn to shreds on numerous occasions by Man City, having also been exposed fairly easily by Chelsea in the quarter-final. They’re all good footballers, but the drop-off from Carvajal (in his prime), Sergio Ramos, Raphael Varane and Marcelo is stark. 

It’d be a major surprise if Liverpool weren’t able to carve out a decent handful of high quality chances against them – it’s more a case of whether they’re able to show the necessary composure and ruthlessness to punish them when those opportunities do come around. 

Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, Andy Robertson, Jordan Henderson, Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah are the six who’ll remain in the Liverpool starting XI from the 2018 final. Up top, the likeliest scenario is that Luis Diaz joins Mané and Salah, with the Colombian cutting in from the left, Salah from the right and Mané continuing through the middle, where he has wreaked so much havoc in recent months. 

Having returned to full training earlier this week, Fabinho will anchor the midfield behind Henderson and, fitness permitting, Thiago. Having the latter on the pitch from the start would be an enormous boost in terms of Liverpool being able to exert a level of control in midfield, and preventing Kroos and Modric from grabbing the game by the scruff of the neck. If Thiago isn’t quite ready, it’ll be Naby Keita taking his place. Either way, it’ll be a midfield unit with considerably more panache than the Henderson-Milner-Wijnaldum trio that started the previous final against Real Madrid. 

Whereas in 2018 Liverpool’s goalkeeper cost them the match in farcical circumstances, this time around they have one of, if not the very best in the business in Alisson Becker. The contrast between what he offers in comparison to Loris Karius, in every aspect of goalkeeping, could hardly be more extreme. 

Barring any late injury news, the one major question mark is whether Joel Matip or Ibrahima Konate partners Van Dijk at centre-back. Both are far more accomplished than Dejan Lovren, who started the 2018 final, but picking between them is the most difficult selection dilemma for Klopp to contend with.