Real Madrid - Liverpool: CL Final 26th May

Who wins?


  • Total voters
    50
  • Poll closed .

koyvoo

Registered User
Nov 8, 2014
17,244
16,982
76E750A4-7392-49A6-949C-25CD1AE32247.jpeg
 

Stray Wasp

Registered User
May 5, 2009
4,561
1,503
South east London
What an anticlimactic letdown of a final after Salah left the field. Real 1, Liverpool 1, Karius 2.

I only watched the first half. Maybe it was fatigue, or Fulham-Villa had eroded my patience, but after Salah went off I found the spectacle rather uninteresting- apart from when the ball reached Modric's feet. Too much running, not enough wit.
 

Live in the Now

Registered User
Dec 17, 2005
53,030
7,489
LA
I hope Klopp never changes for anything. I would rather get to a final and lose every year, or never get there again, rather than have some odious twat like Mourinho who got wrecked by Barcelona a few times and decided he would park the bus and become a dickhead for the rest of his life. I don't see any fun in that, and fun is the reason we watch this stuff in the first place.

It is nice when a team's manager knows not to take themselves too seriously.
 

koyvoo

Registered User
Nov 8, 2014
17,244
16,982
The tweeter himself is probably not objective. Lol. But this is the best view (alternate angle) of the Ramos/Salah incident.

 

les Habs

Registered User
Sep 21, 2005
22,236
3,964
Wisconsin
The first play certainly was not red card worthy. Salah actually initiated the hand/arm locking and Ramos followed suit. It was very unfortunate that it resulted in an injury, and I hope he can get back in time for the world cup. Ramos was definitely trying to be physical with Salah to put him off his game, but that's not intent to injure.

As for the elbow on Karius I've yet to see a great video. The ones that I have seen use a zoom pane/circle to show the elbow contact, but it distorts the rest of the picture, so I couldn't really tell what happened in total. If he intentionally stuck out his elbow, then that's a red.

Weird to say Salah initiated contact. Ramos came to play the ball and threw his elbow in front of Salah (not touching him) and over his arm. Then arms tangled and Ramos made sure Salah's extended arm was pulled towards the right (Salah's I mean) and of course, he made sure the landing was rough.
As I said, Ramos wanted to play Salah tough. Didn't mean to injure him, but made sure he would feel it. Card and foul should be called.

The way Ramos swings his own arm down is something he tried to do to Salah a second or so before, but he was too far behind him. Ramos was already trying to do this immediately before it actually happened.

The German television slow motion replay shows Ramos clearly looked up at Karius and sticks his elbow out and catches Karius. No need for that movement when he does other than to make contact. On top of that watch his reaction after the play. He looks back and makes out that he somehow is the victim.
 

les Habs

Registered User
Sep 21, 2005
22,236
3,964
Wisconsin
I hope Klopp never changes for anything. I would rather get to a final and lose every year, or never get there again, rather than have some odious **** like Mourinho who got wrecked by Barcelona a few times and decided he would park the bus and become a ******** for the rest of his life. I don't see any fun in that, and fun is the reason we watch this stuff in the first place.

It is nice when a team's manager knows not to take themselves too seriously.

Agreed, but I think we're in a minority.
 

S E P H

Cloud IX
Mar 5, 2010
30,725
16,243
Toruń, PL
Oh my this post is bad with the exception of one thing. You said it yourself, Liverpool looked really good when Salah was playing. RM was practically ****ting their pants, I was getting pretty excited, I did not expect to see RM on the back foot like that. Salah is still going to be playing and Liverpool can raise his wages as much as is necessary. As long as he's there, they will be an extremely strong team, and when they add even more quality (because with Keita they already have), even better.

Liverpool already spent 48 million on a midfielder and is talking about spending 60 million on an attacker. They have spent practically nothing in three years. The chairman literally just said they are going to spend and create depth for the squad.

You can't see them beating City when Liverpool's beaten City four times since Pep got there? WTF? I can't believe you would possibly say something so dumb. If anything Pep needs to prove that he can surpass Liverpool in the Champions League. This season was a dream run that happened before they even spent the money they had for transfers. It would have been a miracle to win a CL with Klopp having spent basically nothing in terms of net spend. They still made the final. The idea that Liverpool won't get close again is pretty ludicrous, they had the youngest starting squad since Dortmund made the final. Unlike Dortmund, they have the ability to keep raising their players wages, however far that it needs to go. There will be more finals and more league chances, I have no doubt. It would be different if there were a bunch of old players on this team, but we don't have any. We have gotten very lucky to be in this position, I have no doubt about that either.
I am not going to say that RM was ****ting their pants, they were absolutely bending yet they did not break. I would be more concerned if I was a Red fan and saw how bad Liverpool responded when Salah was subbed off. True, that he's your best player and is probably the best player in form for the past three months in the world. But still, that was quite a pathetic response for the rest of your players. Firmino in particular was just brutal, he had that nice chance which went millimeters over his head, but nothing after that. Even a Viagra-less Benzema who's looked bad all season outplayed Firmino in the final game.

Beating City four times is the absolute worst case that could happen to you guys. Pep is too good of a manager to have this happen to him again, beating him so much will make him prepare extra amount this time in video and sending scouts. You're the guys who beat their undefeated season, they're going to have a lot of beef to settle for next season. Just because you might've matched up well with them this year doesn't mean anything for next season.

They do need Fekir though, you gave the reason yourself. Look who they had to bring in when Salah was injured. A player who didn't play basically all season. Lallana is a really good player but he just blew his thigh, played a few minutes, then has to play for 60 minutes in the CL Final. The game could have went differently if Ox was playing as well, because he brought something from midfield they no longer had today. If Liverpool has two players like let's just say Fekir and Bailey it means they can choose who to play in these games or not worry about injuries. They also definitely have the money to buy those players now. Some of the ones on big wages will have to depart, like Lallana, but such is life.
Honestly, any team can use Fekir ranging from Notts County to Bayern so I don't disagree that Liverpool can really use Fekir. The problem though is that there is only one other team in ALL of football who can have a bench as good as Real Madrid and that team is Barcelona. These two teams have the aura in any single young footballer's heart where there's a special place for them. Enough that they would want to play from the bench as we've seen great players wasted away coming as subs. Liverpool might realistically get Fekir, but I guarantee that the player he replaces will be gone from the squad within a year. They will never ever have a bench where a player like Bale comes on or even Asensio for that matter. That isn't a negative to Liverpool, but as I mentioned there are only two teams who can have squads that deep. One might be joining them in Man City, but we'll see a couple years from now.

Didn't Switzerland upset multiple teams this year?

See, I don't think Barca would have beaten Liverpool. Not in the form they were in then vs. Liverpool's form.

Bayern have been crushed by Madrid 3 times in 5 years and I don't like the direction they're going in.

We'll see about Tuchel's PSG. On paper, they can compete with Madrid.
True Suisse did upset Canada and Finland, but they still lost meaning there was always one more powerhouse team in their way. I wasn't really talking about 2018's, but the last one where Suisse randomly made the finals and just got crushed by Sweden. That isn't even mentioning that Liverpool almost lost it to Roma on the second leg as well. If they were facing Barca and played like they did at Anfield, they would have gotten annihilated. Barca, Bayern, and PSG can all beat Liverpool based upon the teams in the paper game. Furthermore, Allergi's Juve of two years ago before they had that lockerroom fight would have shutdown this Pool.

You don't know football at all, so basically everything you say is totally irrelevant. Mind telling me what Roma paid for Alisson and Atletico paid for Oblak?

Strakosha or Sergio Rico would cost no more than 20m. Kepa and Lafont maybe a little more. The keeper who just won the CL is worse than all those guys. With wisdom like what you said about Salah, I'm surprised you'd try to be an expert about anything related to transfers.
It doesn't matter what Roma or Atletico paid for those goalkeepers, it is what they're going to get which is all that matters. We see it all the time in Evilo's post about all these mid-table to bottom-table clubs randomly finding superstars to sell them for 60 million pounds later. For example, even though they're on the upper portion of the table, Monaco is perfect at this game as well as a lot of Serie A clubs. Even though I slightly disagree with Edo in terms that goalkeepers are not inflated in price compared to players, someone like Oblak will go for more than 50 million pounds. De Gea should go for the upper 60's and honestly both are worth the prices for me.

Klopp can´t drop Karius now. What kind of signal would that send? The first mistake is completely random - got very little to do with his goalkeeping abilities. I know some will talk about mental strength, but all you need to do then is to watch Baresi take that penalty in 94. So if Klopp drops him he will indirectly tell all his players mistakes are not allowed. Only fools believe that good football players do not make mistakes - not even Mourinho believes that.

If he keeps making mistakes of course......
Karius was NEVER Liverpool's long term solution or plan, he was a stopgap since Mignolet lost the starting job.

Gerrard slip was worse. Liverpool have not won EPL in a long long time. Karius mistake was terrible but Liverpool was already down 2-1 with less then 10 minutes left in the game.
Not even close, the Champion's League trophy is the third most important event after the World Cup and Euros. If Liverpool won, they would be joining a legendary group entirely composed of the best footballers ever to play the game since the beginning of the tournament (except Chelsea, that was still beyond fluke). Since they lost and in a hilarious fashion, Karius' mistake is simply the worst.

You'll Never Walk Alone.

DeNfgq_XcAAMtdM.jpg
LOL, amazing banter here.

Weird to say Salah initiated contact. Ramos came to play the ball and threw his elbow in front of Salah (not touching him) and over his arm. Then arms tangled and Ramos made sure Salah's extended arm was pulled towards the right (Salah's I mean) and of course, he made sure the landing was rough.
As I said, Ramos wanted to play Salah tough. Didn't mean to injure him, but made sure he would feel it. Card and foul should be called.
Don't get me wrong that Ramos is a thug, but I don't think he meant to injury him nor was it a red card. Salah saw he was running towards him and tried to protect the ball with his body in which he brought his arms high. Ramos not knowing any better since he's always played as a thug, kept going with his momentum like a thug getting tangled up and eventually dislocating Salah's arm. Don't have too much sympathy since Salah went down easily at least five times by my recollection before he was actually injured.
 
Last edited:

Elliman

Registered User
Jun 29, 2016
1,040
469
New York
The excuses here are really starting to get boarder line make believe. The games over. Let’s move on. Don’t be a sore loser nor a sore winner.
 

maclean

Registered User
Jan 4, 2014
8,380
2,546
And here I was thinking, a Seph post pretty much without controversy... up until the last bit.

I am not saying it should have been a red card, nor am I say it was "intent to injure". But if you read people's posts, that's not what most people are saying either. The fact is, a lot of times people get called on fouls or get carded, it's for something possibly banal, but eminently visible. You see it all the time with controversial penalty calls - "sure it wasn't that bad but he put his hands on him so what can he expect". Ramos is an expert at doing horrible shit while making it look like the kind of stuff that happens in a game all the time (as well as vice versa of course - making stuff that happens in a game all the time look like he was shot by a sniper from the terrace). So I don't blame the ref for not calling anything on it and I don't agree that ref bias was in play for it not being called. But you can't watch that slow motion replay and not come to the conclusion that Ramos is doing his best to yank him into an at best uncomfortable fall. Essentially it was as reckless as a studs-up tackle, just much more "clever" and covert.
 

Corto

Faceless Man
Sep 28, 2005
15,991
942
Braavos
There are lots of teams that can compete with Madrid. City, Barcelona, Juve, PSG, Liverpool, and Bayern all rival or surpass them. On paper anyway. Then what happens in the games where they play them is some voodoo **** where everyone's best players get hurt against them or in the middle of the games between the ties. It's pretty ridiculous.

Against PSG, Neymar gets hurt before leg #2.

When they played Juve, they never played a full strength Juve at any point whatsoever. Matuidi and Cuadrado only came on the field after Dybala was sent off.

Against Bayern, they got to play against Boateng and Robben for like 20 minutes. Could have been less or more, but so disgusting I can't even bother to look. That's not even talking about what the refs did.

Against Liverpool, they play against Salah for like 27 minutes.

Nobody can beat them when that happens. It's a joke.

Part of that is luck, but part of that is the physio team and rotations.
Real played fantastic football in 2015, then Modric (and a few others) got absolutely ran down by the end of the season, and injured. It was Ancelotti's team, it was great football - but with no rotations, and the starting 11 was dead by the semis. No Modric, Juve won, fair and square.

Since Zidane came along, they rotate, even Ronaldo sits out games in La Liga (last year playing only 29, effectively giving up the top scorer title to be fir for the latter part of the season, and this season 27).
Zidane's authority and players buying into the whole thing eventually led to Real peaking from February onwards.
They were absolutely destroyed by injuries at the start of the year and people were already calling them "done" etc.
Like I was saying then, they are the end boss of CL. This is the competition that defines them, and the competition they care most about.

Injuries are a part of the game. I'm pretty sure blaming other teams injuries for Real winning 4 CLs in 5 years is... Silly.
 
Last edited:

koyvoo

Registered User
Nov 8, 2014
17,244
16,982
Some insights from from the perspective of former Premier League goalkeeper Shaka Hislop

Your heart does go out to him because you know how easy it is to make mistakes, and every goalkeeper has - although admittedly not on this kind of stage.

“I am convinced that Jurgen Klopp says to Liverpool, ‘Do everything quickly, let’s go at Real Madrid with pace, don’t give them a moment to rest’.

“And here’s where the experience matters. Loris Karius is a young and inexperienced goalkeeper, certainly at this level.

“For that first goal, he gets the ball in his hands and first thing he’s thinking is, ‘Get play restarted, let me roll it to Dejan Lovren and put Real Madrid on the back foot as quickly and as best we can’ - without ever stopping and taking a moment to make sure Benzema clears out.

“As a result, the ball ends up in the back of the net. You get the quick response and Karius is relieved, but then the Bale goal and he’s back into those moments where he’s haunted thinking, ‘If we lose here 2-1, I’m at fault yet again’.

“The shot comes in from distance and again, as much as this ball is moving from Gareth Bale, look at Karius’ feet. I am convinced that yet again he’s thinking, ‘Let me make this save and put Real Madrid on the back foot’.

“When the ball arrives at him, his feet are almost in a straddle position as though he’s trying to run forward with it before making the save.

“This is where experience matters.”
 
  • Like
Reactions: East Coast Bias

Bon Esprit

Registered User
Jan 24, 2004
4,856
438
Here's an advice to Loris Karius. Talk with Toni Schumacher. He can tell you everything.
Toni got (rightfully) crucified for his actions in the France game vs. Battiston. He recovered.
 

bluesfan94

Registered User
Jan 7, 2008
30,720
8,081
St. Louis
The tweeter himself is probably not objective. Lol. But this is the best view (alternate angle) of the Ramos/Salah incident.


I mean, using your arm like that to try to gain position is fairly common. The weird part is that the arms stayed tangled the whole way down. I don't see it as being as nefarious as some people do, perhaps because I've seen arms get tangled during a fall before. A foul definitely should have been called and if a yellow had been awarded, fine, but a lot of times that doesn't get called because appendages do get tangled in soccer. How often do we see something correctly not get called because "their legs tangled?" It's the same thing here, just with a bad outcome.
 
  • Like
Reactions: koyvoo

bluesfan94

Registered User
Jan 7, 2008
30,720
8,081
St. Louis
Some insights from from the perspective of former Premier League goalkeeper Shaka Hislop
I definitely agree with Hislop on the first goal. Karius just wasn't aware enough of his surroundings and that's indicative of someone who's nervous and inexperienced. A mistake due to that is bound to happen, but usually it's something like throwing the ball out of bounds on accident. This was just an extreme.

For the second, I don't see that being the case. I do think he probably got presumptuous, but he also didn't have his body in the right place and seemed to be in two minds about catching or punching. That's the issue to me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: koyvoo

hatterson

Registered User
Apr 12, 2010
34,953
12,226
North Tonawanda, NY
The tweeter himself is probably not objective. Lol. But this is the best view (alternate angle) of the Ramos/Salah incident.



I see what I always saw. Ramos is catching up to Salah and started to put his arm across Salah's body to help gain leverage, that happens multiple times a game, no real issue with it. Salah also reaches his arm out to gain leverage/hold off Ramos, again no issues and it's very common. Salah underhooks Ramos' arm a little, maybe to help hold him off maybe out of instinct. As their arms are tied up, Ramos reaches out and toe pokes the ball away and starts to fall to the ground. Realizes he's still got his arm tied up with Salah and decides to hold on to drag him down too.

It was a foul and probably should have been a yellow card for the intentional takedown, but it's not remotely close to a red.

Also pretty telling that the "best view" is a slow motion shot cutting out everything below the waist and has a gap in the middle of it.
 

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->