Real Madrid crowned Kings of Europe yet again in delayed final due to “late arrival of fans”

Photo: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye Photo Agency)

Real Madrid won an impressive 14th European Cup / Champions League after 1-0 victory over Liverpool in Paris.

UEFA’s showpiece final was delayed by over half an hour due to the “late arrival of fans”, as per the announcement made inside of the Stade de France. While technically true, the delay was indeed a direct result of Liverpool fans arriving late into the stadium, the implication from the announcement was that it was the fault of the fans arriving late at the stadium. This masks the real story and the extent of the issues with poor over-the-top policing as well as ticketless fans trying to enter the stadium in the hours before the scheduled start of the prestigious final.

Little has actually been said that UEFA actually made a good decision to delay the match to allow more of the Liverpool fans with real tickets to enter the stadium, especially given the amount of pressure from TV companies to stick to committed schedules.

However UEFA and the French Police were very quick to pin the blame for the embarrassing delay squarely on Liverpool fans with fake tickets, whilst taking many days after the event to acknowledge that firing tear gas into large crowds containing a mix of ticketless fans and families of fans with actual tickets is awful policing.

It was interesting that the issues with tear gas and large empty spaces inside the stadium before kick-off only affected Liverpool fans and not the 20,000 Real Madrid fans. While there were long queues for Madrid fans to enter there was not the same chaos as there was at the Liverpool end.

This may be explained by the fact that there were significantly more fans trying to enter the Liverpool sections with fake tickets or without tickets than other areas. Perhaps it was also due to the reputation that Liverpool have earned over the years – hundreds of Liverpool fans illegally entered Champions League Finals in Madrid in 2019 and Athens in 2007. Indeed in Athens the Greek authorities actually decided to close the gates around an hour before kick-off and prevented hundreds of fans with actual tickets from entering because the stadium was already full.

However just because a team brings a number of passionate fans who will try anything to see their team play in an important match doesn’t excuse the awful treatment that all fans of the club have to endure while trying to enter the stadium.

It will be interesting to see what UEFA’s independent investigation into what happened finds and what changes are put in place for future events.

In terms of the match itself…

Liverpool got off to the better start and really pressed Madrid high up the pitch not giving them a chance to breathe. Thibaut Courtois got his fingers burned a few times in the first half but he was in great form making a number of stops. The most impressive was following a low shot from Mane – the Madrid keeper produced a world-class save going down swiftly to his right to get a strong touch on it to knock it on to his post.

That was going to be the story of this final for this Liverpool side though. With Fabinho and Thiago starting after winning their fitness battles they were controlling the midfield in the first half but they could just not get the breakthrough.

Madrid thought they had taken the lead just before halftime. Two minutes before the interval Karim Benzema  poked the ball home only for VAR to rule it out for offside.

Madrid kept their nerve at the start of the second half and after around 60 minutes Valverde drove the ball into the box from the right-hand side for Vinicius to ghost in at the far post and prod the ball into the Liverpool net to make it 1-0 on the night to Madrid.

Klopp made his changes bringing Keita and Firmino on and the Brazilian made a difference straight away. He pulled a ball right back to the edge of the area and Keita should have done a lot better. Courtois was superb, flying to his right to keep out Salah’s right foot curler just clearing the top corner of his net for a Liverpool corner.

First the Belgian got down low to keep out Jota’s effort and then he produced a strong arm to turn a Salah strike behind. It was a man of the match performance and it was Madrid’s night, a 14th title lifted by club captain Marcelo.

With 23 shots and 9 on target to Madrid’s 3 shots and 1 on target Liverpool can count themselves a bit unlucky.

But as Klopp said after the match

“To win big sometimes you have to lose big.”

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