Jurgen Klopp sat down in the belly of the Stade de France and tried his best to sound upbeat. There were few positives to take after this Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid but there was a parallel to draw with the previous one. “The difference between 2018 and now is that I see us coming again,” he said, thinking back to the Kyiv final. “Not in 2018. I wished it but I couldn’t know.”
There are a lot of differences between the Liverpool team of then and the Liverpool team of now. A coming force four years ago, they are now indisputably one of the best teams in Europe. Their obvious strengths were undermined by glaring weaknesses back then. Now, there are no soft spots for opponents to easily exploit. Some things do remain the same, though: for example, much of the personnel.
Six of the Liverpool players who started in Kiev also started in Paris. Two more – Roberto Firmino and James Milner – were among Klopp’s substitutes this time around. Despite their best player having just completed his 13th season at the Santiago Bernabeu and playing a three-man midfield of Toni Kroos, Luka Modric and Casemiro for the best part of a decade, Real Madrid’s starting line-up contained fewer survivors from 2018.
