Jurgen Klopp: Real Madrid favourites for Champions League final
By Tom Gott
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has named Real Madrid as the favourites for their upcoming Champions League final.
Real are the most successful team in the history of the competition and have pulled off the unthinkable this season to squeeze past Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City to reach yet another final.
Ahead of the game, Klopp admitted he feels Real come into the match as favourites but urged his Liverpool squad to hold themselves on the same level as their opponents.
“If you look at the history of the club, the experience of the other team and the way Real Madrid celebrated comebacks then I would say from my point of view that Real Madrid is the favourite," he said. "But actually I want us to be on the same level and thinking we are at the same level.
“I want us to completely be ourselves in this game. If we are on the top of our game we are difficult to play, really difficult to play. That is my only concern at the moment, that we be ourselves and be really confident as well. But of course the confidence level of the Madrid players is incredibly high.
“It would mean a lot to win. The world we are living in means we get judged by the final result. If you are a football person then you know what my boys did this season so far is absolutely exceptional but of course in the end it is all measured by the colour of the medal you get after a game. We are ready for that.
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"History will tell us what people say about us. I am really happy with what we did so far.”
Klopp also took the chance to highlight some concerns over the Stade de France pitch, which was completely relayed in the early hours of Friday morning, poking fun at his history of pitch complaints in the process.
“Usually when I say the pitch looks new that is good news," he explained. "This pitch is new since yesterday, which is not the best news, but it will be the same for both teams.
"I saw the refs with their session and the good news is the ball drops normal. You can see the lines where they put the pieces of the pitch together, which is what we aren’t used to. That someone thought it was a good idea to bring the pitch the day before to the stadium is an interesting idea. But it didn’t kill my mood 1%. I am really happy we are here, I would have played the game on pétanque.
“Both teams are technical teams and you would wish in a dream world that the pitch is the best you ever saw in your life. That’s obviously not the case. Maybe it’s perfect but it looks not perfect. I hope no one makes a story about ‘Klopp moaning about the pitch’. I’m fine.”