It is Real Madrid, with all that its name and history implies. The whites shattered the dream of Luis Díaz and Liverpool, who were unable to seal a nice campaign in the Champions League. The whites have it clear: they endured, hit at the right moment and kept their ‘Orejona’ number 14.
It was not a quiet game. Not even from the previous one, when Incidents at the entrance of Liverpool fans forced Uefa to delay the start of the match by 36 minutes. play. Those minutes, in the long run, favored the English club, which had announced Thiago Alcántara as the starter, but in the warm-up he did not look good. While Keita warmed up with the initialists, Thiago worked with Klopp’s assistants to alleviate his ailments.
The first 25 minutes found a Liverpool with intentions, desire and football to take Real Madrid ahead, which had a hard time passing from the middle of the field and when it did, it was more to clear the ball from its field than another stuff.
However, all that dominance of Liverpool, in the long run, clear options, clear goalscoring, only had one, a shot by Mané that goalkeeper Courtois deflected so that the ball hit the post and went far from his goal.
And Luis Diaz? The first Colombian to start a League final as a starter of Champions started happy, trying to do damage down the left wing, correct when it came to delivering the ball, but without generating much danger. In fact, he couldn’t make a single shot on goal.
This initial dominance was balanced by Real Madrid and thus, the game lost intensity, it became slow and with that, Ancelotti’s men began to settle better on the pitch. In fact, they had a very controversial move, when the first half was already up: Karim Benzema put the ball into Alisson’s goal. However, the action was annulled for offside by the Frenchman, although the Real Madrid people claimed that the ball had hit Fabinho and that this enabled him. However, the VAR review confirmed Benzema’s forward position when Federico Valverde’s serve came off.
The beginning of the second stage seemed to be very similar to that of the first, with a happy Liverpool and stuck in Real Madrid’s field, but it was the meringues who took the advantage, in the 59th minute, when a Valverde service from the The right found the Brazilian Vinicius Junior at the other end, ready to finish off with the goal in front and with all the space to put it. The experience of Madrid began to weigh.
Díaz did not have his best game and did not have the greatest brilliance, which is why Klopp decided that Liverpool’s first change would be for him: at 65 minutes, Diogo Jota replaced him. It is only the second time that the Colombian has come out in the first substitution, but the other time that happened, Liverpool had the game very much on track, in the Premier League, against Manchester United: he put it to rest with a 3-0 in favor.
Diogo Jota’s entry was a piece-by-piece move, to refresh the drawing without fundamentally changing the game’s approach. But the panorama did not change: Real Madrid, very applied behind, held on in their field and sought to play long.
Thus, Klopp kicked the board and filled the court with attacking men: Henderson and Thiago Alcántara outside, Firmino and Keita inside. He was left with two leading forwards, with two wide open ends and with the intention of filling the pitch wide to surprise Madrid in another way.
Liverpool matured the goal, looked for it as best it could. Courtois avoided it twice, first, in a Salah seeker that deflected into Diogo Jota before going close to the post: the Belgian went there to put the tip of his finger and deflect it. And then, the Egyptian hit a cross shot that Courtois stopped to avoid the tie.
Ancelotti seemed to take a long time to make a change to at least cool down the game and curb his rival’s momentum. Barely in the 85th minute he decided to move the bench, bringing out an exhausted Valverde for Camavinga’s entry.
With the clock running out of minutes, Ancelotti began to make changes more to cool down the game than anything else. And he worked for him, because Liverpool did not come back. It may be one of Real Madrid’s less brilliant finals, but at that club they know how to play this type of game. Not in vain this Saturday is number 14 in its history. And he earned it well.
Jose Orlando Ascencio
Sports Sub-Editor
@josasc
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