Liverpool, Real up for Battle of Attack-Minded Aristocracy
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TTENNISENNIS | Page 3 NNBABA | Page 5 Nadal happy Rockets beat to ‘suff er’ in Warriors to pursuit of 11th edge closer to French Open NBA Finals Saturday, May 26, 2018 CYCLING Ramadan 10, 1439 AH Froome in pink GULF TIMES as Giro disaster strikes for Yates SPORT Page 6 UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE “People can talk about favourites, but we know it’s not about that. We’re not favourites, nor are they. It’s 50-50 as fi nals always are. We’ll have to play a great game to try and win. We don’t see ourselves as favourites and aren’t taking anything for granted.” — Zinedine Zidane, Real Madrid coach Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo Liverpool, Real up for battle of attack-minded aristocracy Expect some sparkling fare from two great clubs who between them have claimed almost a third of all European Cups By Barney Ronay peaks that have been beyond the rest of Europe you just have to go with it, not least when both The Guardian this year. Not least that visceral commitment to embody and enact the most extreme strengths Last 5 winners attack embodied in the headline acts Cristiano of their own team; and when they have a little Ronaldo and Mohamed Salah. more in common as players than might at fi rst 2016-17: Real Madrid (ESP) ls sont les meilleurs. Nobody else has scored more goals in the seem the case. 2015-16: Real Madrid (ESP) Sie sind die Besten. competition this season than these two teams. Zinedine Zidane has already announced that 2014-15: Barcelona (ESP) These are the champions! Nobody else has had more shots on target or at- he wouldn’t take Salah in his Madrid team. It is 2013-14: Real Madrid (ESP) At least they are if you squint a little. tacked with such cavalier conviction. Liverpool hard to imagine him saying anything else on the 2012-13: Bayern Munich (GER) IWhen Liverpool and Real Madrid walk out have scored or conceded 53 goals in the tourna- eve of the fi nal, just as there is no real compari- at the Olympic Stadium in Kiev, neck hairs ment proper en route to Kiev, Madrid 45. son to be made here, at least not yet. Ronaldo Most European Cup/ prickling to the wonderfully overblown strains By way of comparison, Manchester United is an all-time phenomenon, remarkable for his Champions League wins of Tony Britten’s choral Champions League conceded fi ve and scored 13 across eight games sustained, relentless productivity. Salah has theme, they will do so in the capacity of genu- in the course of a meek last-16 exit that felt as if been operating somewhere close to this for nine Real Madrid (ESP) — 12 (1956, 1957, 1958, ine European aristocracy. it came from another sporting age altogether. months now. 1959, 1960, 1966, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2014, By the end of Saturday night these two clubs Attacking football is in vogue, state of the art But still, we are in the late days now of the 2016, 2017) will have won fi ve of the past 14 Champions among winning teams, although not simply the Messi-Ronaldo godhead, a conjoined suprema- AC Milan (ITA) — 7 (1963, 1969, 1989, 1990, Leagues between them and almost a third of all annihilating slow death of possession football. cy that has been soundtracked by a rolling sub- 1994, 2003, 2007) European Cups since the competition was born Liverpool are 10th when it comes to average debate about succession, about the next of the Bayern Munich (GER) — 5 (1974, 1975, 1976, more than half a century ago. minutes in possession of the ball this year, Madrid next-besters. Salah’s 42 goals this season (to 2001, 2013) There is a purity even in the prospect of fi fth. Victory has instead come through periods Ronaldo’s 41) have elevated his status, a newbie Barcelona (ESP) — 5 (1992, 2006, 2009, meringue white versus Anfi eld red, a skein of of sustained attacking heat, a way of playing that face among that raft of pretenders. 2011, 2015) emotional authenticity in the fl ags, the songs, some have called the surge or the blitz. In terms of style – left-footed, jinky, shaggy- Liverpool (ENG) — 5 (1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, that shared folk memory of so many other Liverpool did not win in Germany, Portugal A fan poses for a photograph with a scarf in haired – Salah has most often been compared to 2005) fl oodlit triumphs. and Manchester by wearing their opponents front of a giant replica of the Champions League Messi. But the fact is that he is probably closer Ajax (NED) — 4 (1971, 1972, 1973, 1995) There is, of course, another side to this. down but by conjuring up those famous attack- trophy in Kiev, Ukraine, yesterday. (Reuters) to Ronaldo. Both run relentlessly, popping up in Some will question the right of either team to ing spells, moments where they simply fl ip the the top fi ve attackers for metres covered in the Most recent game proclaim themselves the best in Europe when switch and enter the Red Zone, a team playing slackness. There will be goals. Champions League this season. between them these two champions in waiting through a kind of synchronised rage. Talking of which: enter the big two. It is, of Like a mid-20s Ronaldo, Salah is a power- May 19: Villarreal 2-2 Real Madrid (Martínez fi nished a combined 42 points behind Man- Madrid were almost laughably fortunate course, misguided to obsess over individuals in runner with wonderfully quick feet and the 70, Castillejo 85; Bale 11, Ronaldo 32) chester City and Barcelona in the weekly grind. in the second leg of their semi-fi nal against what is more than ever a team sport. But this is ability at his best to basically make the game up May 13: Liverpool 4-0 Brighton (Salah 26, Not that there’s anything new in this. The Bayern Munich at the Bernabéu, hanging on unlikely to stop anyone doing it – relentlessly, in front of him. Salah is yet to reach anywhere Lovren 40, Solanke 53, Robertson 85) last reigning domestic champions to lift Eu- as the ball trickled or dribbled away from the and with an increasing reverence for the power of near the same heights. But in his best moments rope’s shiniest trophy were the peak Messi- vital touch so often that there was a kind of the star player, a sport of endless close-ups and he looks a bit like a product of some advanced Last ten games (recent fi rst) Pep Barcelona of 2011, evidence either of the hysteria in the stands by the end. But that tie, grand-scale personality obsession. gene-splicing Ronaldo-Messi experiments: dilution of the competition’s purity or of its like the previous round against Juventus, was The Champions League fi nal dishes up a the body of a shaggy-haired, left-footed jinker, Real Madrid: DWLDDWWDWL sheer depth of quality, depending on where you won by trusting in the cutting edge at the other little more in the way of ultimacy here, with but the direct style of a sprinter, a cutting edge Liverpool: WLLDWDWWDW choose to stand. end, the absolute conviction that at some point a meeting of Ronaldo and Salah: football’s rather than a playmaker. This time, though, the disjunct is pro- those strengths will tell. To borrow a line from reigning golden goal-dalek, the current owner In Kiev, Salah and Ronaldo will once again be nounced. For Madrid a fourth title in fi ve Gary Player, the more Real Madrid keep on of the Ballon d’Or, versus the Premier key to the attacking tempo of the competition’s by Salah. The Olympic Stadium was originally years would install this team as unassailable winning the Champions League in haphazard League’s own man of the season. two highest scoring teams. There has been a slight known as the Red Stadium of Trotsky, and after masters of the modern age. At home they have attacking fashion the luckier they seem to get. It has been almost too easy adaption with Madrid. These days they like to that as the just the Red Stadium. The ability of two league titles in the past decade. Liverpool Either way, the vocal majority who seemed to pitch this fi nal as a push you back and keep possession, to load balls the team and their fans to turn the air red on haven’t been champions of England in more so underwhelmed by the dogged, reactive shootout between two into the box knowing Ronaldo will eventually fi nd Saturday night, to generate that shared driv- than a quarter of a century. Die Meister. Die football on show in Saturday’s FA Cup players who have 25 the tiny pocket of air he requires to combination ing energy, will be key to Liverpool’s chances. Besten. Les grandes équipes! fi nal can at least be assured of something Champions League punch the ball into the back of the net. Either way, it promises to be a thrilling, extreme And yet for all the gripes there are certain else in Kiev. There will be extremes of goals between them. With Liverpool the best moments have all and in its own way entirely apt meeting of the unassailable qualities in both these fi nalists, attacking intent. There will be defensive But sometimes been about the surge and the blitz, led so often knockout cavaliers. “I am longer at Liverpool than he is at Real Madrid and he can win for the Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah third time the Champions League.