The 2018 UEFA Champions League final in Kiev is within touching distance for Liverpool, Roma, Bayern Munich and hat-trick-seeking holders Real Madrid. The four clubs resume hostilities in the world’s greatest club competition this week with the first legs of the semi-finals.
Merseyside and Munich are the venues as Liverpool, quarter-final conquerors of Premier League
champions Manchester City, do battle with Barcelona-beating comeback kings Roma at Anfield before Bayern host Madrid in a super heavyweight clash at the Allianz-Arena 24 hours later.
Here’s my preview of the two games.
Liverpool v Roma
While they will doubtless profess otherwise in public, neither Liverpool nor Roma would have privately expected to reach this stage of the competition – especially after being drawn against the respective might of Manchester City and Barcelona in the quarter-finals. However, one of the clubs will be travelling to the capital of Ukraine for the final on May 26, and while they will almost certainly go there as underdogs, there are reasons for both teams to believe that they could upset the odds and return home with the trophy.
First things first, though, and Anfield will be alive with noise and passion once again on Tuesday night as the Reds and the Yellow-and-Reds (Giallorossi) meet for the sixth time in their history. The first occasion was the 1984 European Cup final, which Liverpool won on penalties in Roma’s own Stadio Olimpico to claim the fourth of their five continental crowns. Roma have never returned for a second final; indeed this is the furthest they have gone since then, two heavy quarter-final defeats by another English club, Manchester United, having halted their progress to the last four in 2006/07 and 2007/08.
Although no one expected Roma to knock out Barcelona at the same stage this season – especially after they had succumbed 4-1 to the Catalans at the Camp Nou in the first leg – it shouldn’t be forgotten that they actually topped a group containing Chelsea and Atlético Madrid and they also came back from a first-leg defeat to see off Shakhtar Donetsk in the round of 16, so write them off at your peril.
The main concern for Eusebio Di Francesco’s side ahead of the Anfield visit, however, is that they have lost their last three away games in the Champions League – 0-2 at Atlético and 1-2 at Shakhtar before that heavy defeat in Barcelona. And Liverpool, as they have repeatedly shown this season, not least in beating Manchester City 3-0 there earlier this month, are a formidable beast on their own turf.
Jürgen Klopp’s side are the only one of the four semi-finalists yet to lose a game. Including the play-off round, their 12 fixtures have yielded eight wins and four draws. They have also racked up 39 goals, with the dynamic front three of Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané having shared 25 of those among themselves. Salah, indeed, has scored 41 goals in all competitions this season and on Sunday scooped the PFA Player of the Year award. Last season, he was playing for Roma. It goes without saying that the Egyptian maestro will be super-motivated for this one.
Prediction: Liverpool will hope to take the game to Roma – as they did against Manchester City – but while it is highly doubtful that the Giallorossi will be able to keep out Salah and co for the full 90 minutes, I fancy the visitors to do what City couldn’t and sneak an away goal, which, given that they haven’t conceded at the Stadio Olimpico in Europe this season, should set up the second leg nicely.
3-1
Bayern Munich v Real Madrid
This is Europe’s most frequently played fixture, with the record champions of Germany and Spain set to cross swords for the 25th time. There have been several epic duels in the past, with the two clubs dead level on 11 wins apiece as a result of last season’s highly eventful quarter-final, in which Real Madrid came from behind to beat Bayern 2-1 in Munich, then lost by the same score over the 90 minutes in the Bernabéu only to get lucky with the officiating on numerous occasions and run out 4-2 winners (6-3 on aggregate) after extra time.
Madrid, of course, went on to win the Champions League for the second year running, but can Zinedine Zidane’s side become the first to win three European Cups in a row since Bayern in the mid-1970s? Having been paired with – and eliminated – Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus in the first two knockout rounds, they have drawn the short straw once again. Bayern, by contrast, have been handed a relatively straightforward passage to the last four. They thrashed Beşiktaş 8-1 over the two legs and while surprisingly subdued against Sevilla in the quarter-finals, winning 2-1 on aggregate, it never seemed likely that they would go out.
Semi-finalists for the sixth time in seven seasons – the only blemish was that quarter-final exit against Madrid last season – Bayern have nevertheless lost all of their last three ties at this stage, all to Spanish opposition and all while Pep Guardiola was in charge. It’s time for them to change the script, and with Jupp Heynckes, the man who last led them to European glory (and an unprecedented treble) five years ago when they beat Jürgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund 2-1 at Wembley (after routing Barcelona 7-0 on aggregate in the semis), having proved a formidable reacquisition since coming out of retirement to replace Carlo Ancelotti in the autumn (check out the current Bundesliga table for proof), it’s tempting to suggest that Bayern go into this tie as slight favourites.
While the men from Munich have romped unopposed to a sixth successive Bundesliga title, Madrid have long since thrown in the towel in La Liga, where unbeaten Barcelona rule supreme. The Champions League is everything to them, and although they very nearly threw it all away in that barely believable quarter-final against Juventus, the fact is they came through it – and, as ever, the man who carried them across the threshold was Cristiano Ronaldo.
The most prolific marksman in European Cup history has scored 15 goals in this season’s Champions League, including at least one in every game. Stretch his run back to last season and he has 25 in his last 15 games, including five of Madrid’s six in that quarter-final against Bayern. Clearly, Heynckes and his players, while confident of penetrating Madrid’s defence with their heavy artillery of attacking talent – Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Müller, Arjen Robben et al – must devise a plan to shackle Ronaldo.
Prediction: Surely Madrid can’t do to Bayern what they did in the first leg of their quarter-final to Juventus. Normally so powerful, confident and dominant at home, the German champions should win, but keeping a clean sheet is another matter.
2-1
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