Europe 1 with AFP
modified to
10:52 p.m., February 20, 2023
Nine months after their duel in the Champions League final tarnished by incidents and scenes of violence at the Stade de France, Liverpool and Real Madrid meet on Tuesday in the round of 16 first leg of C1 to look to the future. With twenty victories between them in the most prestigious of continental competitions, there is probably no more emblematic poster for the Champions League.
Forget the drama of the Stade de France
The tragedy narrowly avoided by Reds supporters last May in Saint-Denis, between mistreatment by the French police on arrival at the stadium, which had led to the postponement of the kick-off, and assaults by gangs of young people, will necessarily be in the back of their minds.
The recent publication of an independent report commissioned by UEFA which established that Liverpool fans were victims and which named UEFA and the French police as directly responsible, has already given a boost to the heart. But the chances of the draw, which also allows the two teams to find themselves so quickly, will be one more step to turn this very dark page and give way to the field again. “Nothing that happened in Paris is Real’s fault and nothing that happened is the fault of our supporters”, underlined Monday, in a pre-match press conference, the Reds coach Jürgen Klopp.
Two struggling teams in the league
“Real fans who come here should be given the best possible welcome, walk around town, go to pubs, that sort of thing, enjoy their time here and go to one of the most historic places in world football. And then two very high level teams will face each other and I don’t see why the final in Paris should bring something more,” he added. It will be necessary to forget these incidents all the more quickly as the two teams, on different scales, are struggling in the league.
Real without Tchouaméni or Kroos
Real is, of course, second in La Liga, but eight behind Barcelona, after 22 days. The Merengues will also be deprived of two indisputable holders in the middle, the French Aurélien Tchouaméni and the German Toni Kroos, sick, not appearing in the group summoned for the match. On the other hand, Karim Benzema, spared Saturday during the victory in Osasuna (2-0), should take his place, as well as the right side Dani Carvajal, back from a muscle injury after six matches of unavailability.
But for the Reds, this C1, of which they have reached the final three times in the last five editions, is even more of a lifeline in a very chaotic season at the moment. With two matches less than the fourth, Tottenham, their seven points behind in the qualifying places for the next C1 do not seem prohibitive.
But the extremely irregular performances since the start of the championship, where the team has sometimes given the impression of having lost its intensity and its ruthlessness which have led it to so much success, do not inspire confidence.
Capable of the best and the worst
If the victory at Newcastle (2-0) on Saturday was good, it is a bit of a sham, the score being acquired after 20 minutes and the Magpies having played 70 minutes to 10 after the match. expulsion of their keeper. “At eleven against ten, we did not manage very well by losing our momentum and we had trouble regaining it”, underlined Jürgen Klopp after the match, aware that his team is capable of the best as well as the worst, sometimes in the same game.
This second success in a row in the league thus followed four games without a win which themselves followed four victories. The Reds will therefore not be favorites, far from it, especially against one of their pet peeves. If they won their first three confrontations, including the C1 final in 1981 (1-0), they lost five times, for a draw, out of the next six, including twice in the final, in 2018 in Kiev ( 3-1) and at the Stade de France (1-0).