Liverpool greats offer advice as Jurgen Klopp’s men aim to drown Real Madrid in goals in Champions League final
Steven Gerrard and Kenny Dalglish have their say as Reds look to continue free-flowing brand of football
“They will want to do it again. It would be big 100 per cent. If we did it, it would be big, too. We will try,” said Liverpool’s manager with an understatement at odds with his belief that his team will succeed.
The narrative of young pretenders challenging the established order appeals to Klopp, who made his name taking aim at Bayern Munich with Borussia Dortmund, but Liverpool are hardly ingenues when it comes to winning European titles.
Victory on Saturday would bring their sixth European Cup and reinforce their status as by far England’s most successful team in the competition. Predictably, advice from their legion of past winners has flowed all week.
To Steven Gerrard, hero of the 2005 win over AC Milan, they must simply seize the moment; to Alan Kennedy, who scored the goal which beat Real in the 1981 European Cup final it is about courage; to Kenny Dalglish, a winner in 1978, 1981 and 1984 the secret lies in understanding how to react when the pressure bites.
With pedigree like that, Liverpool are rather more than cocky upstarts out to take a swipe at Real and it will be a surprise if Klopp does not keep faith with the free-flowing brand of football that has made them the competition’s leading scorers with 40 goals.