All eyes will be on Paris this weekend when Liverpool face Real Madrid in the Champions League final.
Two heavyweights of European football, the finalists have 19 titles between them in this competition and the Sporting News 7 has all the angles covered for you in the build-up to kick-off.
We look at each team’s run to final at the Stade de France, with Carlo Ancelotti helming Madrid through a succession of increasingly-improbable comebacks as he aims for a fourth Champions League success as a coach.
Liverpool had a comparatively more serene path to the French capital but Jurgen Klopp had to juggle a bid for trophies on four fronts, which has already yielded the Carabao Cup and FA Cup.
It is sure to be a talent-packed occasion with several intriguing duels, from Trent Alexander-Arnold trying to simultaneously dictate terms for Liverpool and keep Vinicius Jr quiet, to Virgil van Dijk and the rest of the Reds’ defence attempting to stop Karim Benzema from adding to his phenomenal haul of 15 goals in this season’s Champions League.
Joe Wright and Raj Mahil are in Paris for The Sporting News and have been gathering expert insight from the likes of Frank Leboeuf and Stewart Robson, while also taking the temperature of both fanbases as the hours tick by.
So, what’s going to happen on the night? Will it be a repeat of Madrid’s 2018 win in Kyiv and a 14th Champions League crown for Los Blancos or will Mohamed Salah get his revenge and leave the Reds in seventh heaven? It won’t be long until we have all the answers.
