Jurgen Klopp admits his rival in Paris is a “role model” with whom he has a “fantastic relationship.”
But the Liverpool manager is adamant he will not fear Carlo Ancelotti’s incredible tactical brain in the Champions League final….or his remarkable Real Madrid side, despite three impossible comebacks in the competition already. Klopp says he has always looked up to the Italian manager, and joked: “He is one of the best people you can ever meet, fantastic company, and we have a really good relationship.
“It had a bit of a break when he was at Everton because we both respected this part of the business too much otherwise we would have gone out for dinner a couple of times.” But even with that respect, Klopp says he will not show it in the showpiece final…or become intimidated by Madrid, despite their astonishing strength in dumping Manchester City, Chelsea and PSG out of the competition.
Each time, they produced an impossible comeback, scoring two late goals against the Paris club, a late leveller on aggregate against Chelsea, and then that ridiculous injury time fight back against City. Klopp though, pointed out that his own team have been remarkable in the competition this season, winning every single away game, and all their group games for the first time.
“I really want to focus on us, with all respect to Real Madrid and Carlo Ancelotti. I know how good they are,” he said. “But I cannot go into the game and just constantly talk and think about Real Madrid in the last 10 minutes, or five minutes, two minutes.
“If that would be our opponent for 90 minutes, that will be really tricky. But, thank God, there are 88 more minutes. There are different aspects of analysis obviously. So now if we would only take the last 10 minutes of all the last knockout stages they had, then you would say they are pretty much unbeatable, clear, no chance.”
Klopp also pointed out that his own team is now feared across Europe. And on the subject of revenge, he cited an old saying: “In Germany we say you always meet twice in life and that sounds more like a threat than it actually is.
“It means behave better in the first moment, because if you meet again, you will get the reception or the reaction. It is all fine between me and us and Real Madrid; I think it would be a great story (if we won this time) – but it will not happen because of what happened in 2018.
“We deserve this as well. My boys played a sensational season. We are all in a good mood, life is like this: if you are healthy, which the boys obviously are, life gives you opportunities again and again.”
