ECHO Comment: "Fears of Witch-hunt Against Liverpool FC" part 3

[PITA]

So the best team in the land ever of all time x 1000000

Couldnt score in 3 finals

And didnt beat anyone from the top 4 in the prem?

HA HA HA HA HA HA

And if they had won just one they would have won the league.

 

[WA Toffee]

Absolute scatter gun approach from fans and media this morning blaming every single angle with not an ounce of accountability. That’s the bit that irks me, nobody has said ‘there shouldn’t have been fans there without tickets or fake tickets’ etc.

I’m not saying it’s all Liverpool’s fault either. Clearly a major issue at the stadium last night and I genuinely feel for fans who had a horrendous time.

It's a bit like the gun nuts in the US. Blame everything except the gun

 

[deipnosophist]

On another day, in some other timeline, maybe Real Madrid could have won the 2021-22 Champions League final.

It would have been improbable in any universe, with the way Carlo Ancelotti’s team played, but you can imagine some alternate reality where the movements of bodies and balls are just a little less orderly, where football is a little less fair — who knows, maybe stranger things have happened in a world like that than a smash-and-grab 1-0 win.

But yesterday was not that day, and this is not that timeline.

Of course Liverpool are champions. That was never in doubt, not after Sadio Mane scored the fastest goal in Champions League final history 49 seconds in.

It wasn’t exactly a shock that the goal came from a high-pressing situation. Since the start of the group stage, Liverpool ranked third out of the 16 teams who ended up advancing to the knockout phase for how well they disrupted opponents’ build-up play. Real Madrid last night were no exception.

The staggered front five in Liverpool’s 4-3-3 high block denied access to Madrid’s midfield long enough that David Alaba turned and passed back to goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.

That was Mane’s trigger to jump forward from his new centre-forward role. He first closed down Courtois — who’s a rarity at the top of the game right now for his relatively clumsy feet — and then swerved to chase the keeper’s return ball to Alaba.



At the same time, Mohamed Salah hurried around to the other side of Alaba to deny the easy outlet pass to the left-back, Ferland Mendy. The pressing trap was sprung.

By the time Salah succeeded in squeezing Mendy against the sideline on the ball, Liverpool’s midfielders and their right-back, Trent Alexander-Arnold, had each jumped about five yards in front of any potential passing options.



That aggressive positioning not only blocked would-be receivers in Liverpool’s cover shadows (a fancy German name for the inaccessible space directly behind a defender), it also left each defender close enough to step up if Mendy tried to chip a pass over the guy in front of them — which sure enough, he did, overhitting a ball that Alexander-Arnold cut out.

Some teams’ first instinct when they win the ball suddenly like that is to pass backwards, secure possession and recover their shape before launching an attack. Liverpool did exactly the opposite, rushing straight for goal in transition like a good German-coached team, so that the opponents’ defence wouldn’t have time to get organised.

It took four seconds from the interception to a ball through the Madrid back line.



Alaba lunged to cut out the through-ball, and on another day maybe he would have got a toe to it. Instead, Mane tapped the ball around both him and Casemiro and fired a shot one-on-one against Courtois, who never stood a chance. 1-0. Liverpool fans, who had found their seats hours ahead of kick-off thanks to well-run security and streamlined crowd management, cheered.

Fifteen minutes later, they struck again.

This time it was the new and improved features of Liverpool’s passing game that bagged them a goal.

Thiago, distributing from his preferred deep-left role while moving to his right, played a comfortable diagonal out to Jordan Henderson on the right wing.

Henderson headed the ball back to Alexander-Arnold at the corner of the box. In past seasons, maybe Alexander-Arnold would have looked for a shallow cross here, but in this one he’s been getting into the cutback zone to set up higher-value chances.

Alexander-Arnold’s low cross found Salah, who put a shot on target with a post-shot expected goals value of 0.53 — more likely to score than not. On another day, maybe Courtois would have got a hand to it, but since football is a mathematically exact sport and the probabilities were against him, it’s only fair that he didn’t.

And so on it went for Madrid, who did manage a deserved goal involving Karim Benzema and some befuddling VAR metaphysics about what Fabinho did or didn’t intend to do, but Ancelotti’s team couldn’t seem to accomplish a whole lot else in this best of all possible worlds.

It didn’t help that their answer to Liverpool’s press was to drop Toni Kroos below Casemiro. It might have made sense, in theory, to link their best deep passer with their centre-backs instead of their worst one but, in practice, it kept stretching the midfield into a diagonal shape best described as, uh, avant-garde.


Meanwhile, Liverpool couldn’t stop scoring.

Sadio Mane’s low heater of a shot in the 21st minute grazed Courtois’ glove, bounced off the inside of the post, and made it three.



A Salah curler from his favourite zone at the top of the box slipped under Courtois’ reaching arm for the fourth.



Diogo Jota headed a ball across a gaping net to Salah, who had an easy tap-in at the other post.

Of course he scored that. This sport isn’t random. It’s not cruel.



When the final whistle blew, the score was Liverpool 5 Real Madrid 1 — a little wider than the xG difference, but only because Real Madrid were credited a big chance off a scuffed Fede Valverde shot that surprised everyone, including Vinicius Junior, who tripped over what might have been a tap-in at the back post.


No one could argue the result was unfair. Liverpool had the better of possession, field tilt, shots, and expected goals. They’d played the game in an organised 4-3-3 and pushed into Madrid’s half, while Ancelotti’s lopsided shape, meant to test the space behind Alexander-Arnold with the Vinicius-Benzema pairing, never really created much threat.



If you’re blessed with an active imagination, maybe you can conceive of some other universe where a game that lopsided might come out the other way.

But here in the real world, football — like life — is fair, and Liverpool have won their seventh Champions League, level with AC Milan for second-most ever behind only Madrid’s 13.

(Top photo: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

John Muller is a Senior Writer for The Athletic UK. He writes about analytics and calls the sport soccer, but hey, nobody’s perfect. Follow John on Twitter @johnspacemuller


That could have been written by Michael Owen except he would have struggled to spell the first word.

...that's a beautifully conceived and constructed flight of fantastical fancy

 

[PITA]

John bishop is about as funny as piles.

Don't agree.

 

[4737carlin]

40,000 French African lads

Who all wanted to be in the Liverpool end and none fancied going in the Victor's end.

 

[4737carlin]

Don’t know how to feel about this. Anyone who went to the Lille and Lyon games will know how awful French police are to foreign fans (both times was shocking). However, I’m still inclined to believe that the Liverpool fans were awful (because of the video evidence and their previous). Don’t know enough, so might stay out of this discussion I think

I think the issue is with police like these if you step out of line there will be consequences, they don't need much provocation as it is, but last night they got it and responded

 

[Saint Domingo]

I think the issue is with police like these if you step out of line there will be consequences, they don't need much provocation as it is, but last night they got it and responded

Uefa are at fault, the police are at fault and Liverpool fans are at fault. Each party though is too busy playing whataboutery and blaming each other to ever accept any blame. They all need to sort their own houses our first before pointing blame but there’s not three worse organisations for refusing to accept responsibility than that lot.

Liverpool fans need to accept that if you turn up with thousands of counterfeit tickets and can’t behave when trying to enter the stadium then you’re opening up the possibility of rubbish uefa logistics and over the top policing occurring. They’ll never accept any responsibility though so it’s yet more crying about unfair policing or poor organisation from uefa

 

[Rita_Poon]

Don't agree.

As being hit in the neck by a poison tipped arrow only to find a gas bill attached? John Bishop is the "tarby" of the modern age, a stinking tory excuse maker of the worst order. hateful.

 

[Rita_Poon]

Uefa are at fault, the police are at fault and Liverpool fans are at fault. Each party though is too busy playing whataboutery and blaming each other to ever accept any blame. They all need to sort their own houses our first before pointing blame but there’s not three worse organisations for refusing to accept responsibility than that lot.

Liverpool fans need to accept that if you turn up with thousands of counterfeit tickets and can’t behave when trying to enter the stadium then you’re opening up the possibility of rubbish uefa logistics and over the top policing occurring. They’ll never accept any responsibility though so it’s yet more crying about unfair policing or poor organisation from uefa

If you have a fake ticket and get in, you are denying the person that has the authentic ticket. Man woman or child, old, disabled or otherwise.

"I'm alright jack FC"

Worse than the Gestapo. (Because they admitted it)

 

[Moggers]

 

[Cork Evertonian]

Having a "victory" parade on the anniversary of the Heysel disaster. Classless scum.

 

[Alanbileysfeathercut]

The lads…

Needs a haircut, the bad wool.

 

[gorgeousgeorgeEFC]

I can’t stand the RS and I’m delighted that arrogant Klippoty and his arrogant players like Alexander-Arnold lost. However, I also can’t condone women, children and the elderly being doused in pepper spray. Why the French police corralled thousands of peaceable ticket holders into a tiny area and detained them for hours is inexplicable and inexcusable. The likes of the Sun and the London media are using this as a stick with which to beat our city and I won’t support that.

 

[mmmmsnouts]

I can’t stand the RS, but I also can’t condone women, children and the elderly being doused in pepper spray. Why the French police corralled thousands of peaceable ticket holders into a tiny area and detained them for hours is inexplicable and inexplicable. The likes of the Sun and the London media are using this as a stick with which to beat our city and I won’t support that.

Because a bunch of their scummy fans clogged up the turnstiles with fake tickets and brought the whole entry process to a screeching halt

 

[gorgeousgeorgeEFC]

Because a bunch of their scummy fans clogged up the turnstiles with fake tickets and brought the whole entry process to a screeching halt

There’s no evidence to support this claim. Also, how can a few hundred fake tickets cause people to be detained for up to four hours?