I was rooting for Liverpool, of course. They lost their sparkle when Salah, then Karius lost his mind. In between, Bale added a nought to his value.
I have a few questions:
Did Ramos mean to take Salah out? The experts in the studio were non-committal but I think he pulled him deliberately to the floor.
What has Karius thinking? I’m pretty sure he could actually see a big bloke in all-white.
How did Bale score that overhead? Is it the best goal ever in a Champions League final?
Was Karius’s vision blurred by hot, salty tears for Bale’s second? It’s as though he thought it was going to swerve to his right but it kept almost straight.
Isn’t Modric a great, great player?
Doesn’t Karius deserve credit for apologising to the fans at the end, instead of running off down the tunnel?
Klopp didn’t comfort him at the end. Does that mean he is out?
Who says Zidane can’t manage?
Why did Marcello take a piece of the net? Where’s he going to put it?
Are Liverpool going to win anything next season?
Will Salah be fit for the World Cup?
When did Joey Barton become an expert?
Are there any more droning, monotone, boring voices than Gerrard, Lampard and Ferdinand?
Shouldn’t this match be on terrestrial TV?
Most importantly of all; did Ronaldo get his hair done at half-time?
You have a lot of questions
You’ll never walk alone. Unless you’re Loris Karius…….
I’ve drunk too much to answer these questions individually but no one really expected Liverpool to be here tonight. Its been a wild season and regardless of tonight’s result I’ll be back for more next season.
Salah’s injury was a result of carrying Liverpool on his back all season.
Modric is, and always was, a fine player – when he can be arsed.
Joey Barton is an expert at being a bit of a dick.
Ex-pros, in their dissected world of Rolex Watches and Bentleys, rarely make good pundits.
Madrid deserved the win. Liverpool lost “something” a couple of weeks ago. They haven’t looked quite as cavalier in the past couple of games
I don’t think Brighton will agree.
Actually, I think Barton illustrates that being a dick but having a modicum of insight on football are not mutually exclusive.
Karius Out, Butland In?
Burnley have 2 England keepers. Big bucks for Pope probably less for Heaton. I believe Joe Hart is available, as is Buffon.
Shouldn’t this match be on terrestrial TV?
Nope. It’s not a national occasion, like the FA Cup used to be. Sell it to the highest bidder like everything else.
Much as I love the North-West of England, they are often in danger of being unaware that the rest of the UK exists.
Good point. Anyone would think Manchester is London. Easy mistake to make.
Well, they’ve both got places called Victoria, Piccadilly and Oxford Street, so it is indeed an easy mistake to make.
Mornington Crescent!
@duco01
Sorry. It’s Oxford Road, not street.
Sorry!
Both Oxford Road and Oxford Street exist in Manchester.
The road in question is called Oxford Road until it meets Whitworth Street West at about the Palace Theatre. North of that, for the few blocks up to St. Peter’s Square, it’s called Oxford Street. No, honestly, it is.
@duco01
Told you I was sorry!
BTW, that’s impressive knowledge for one so far away!
It was free to watch on Youtube.
And free on BT Sport online.
Karius put his head in his hands at the end of the game. And he dropped that too!
*applause*
More questions than answers. But…
It was a deliberate foul, but not with the deliberate intent of causing serious injury. Pretty much the sort of thing that goes on all the time.
Karius’s second error was worst than the first. The first was ridiculous; the second almost incomprehensible. Feel sorry for him but hard to see how he can stay at Liverpool after that.
Bale’s goal was unbelievable and a worthy match-winner – but isn’t there an element of luck with bicycle kicks? You can’t literally aim – just hit and hope for the best, no?
And Modric – yes absolutely. He makes everything look so effortless, so in control, so calm. As a Spurs fan I regret our losing him even more than I regret us losing Bale.
Sadly for Liverpool, a night of might have beens and if only. But they were beaten by the better team.
One other question – does Ronaldo ever celebrate someone scoring a brilliant goal and taking the limelight away from him?
Ramos seemed very pleased with himself when Salah went off.
I’m struggling to recall Ronaldo celebrating anyone else’s goal with any real enthusiasm.
Bale’s ‘hit and hope bicycle Kick’, sorry that is utter bollocks. Players such as Bale, Salah, Ronaldo don’t hit and hope, they are football geniuses and know what they are doing.
I’m sorry for Salah, he seems to be a good man who isn’t an egoistic bastard, like most of his fellow ‘professionals. I hope he gets fit for the WC.
To score a goal like Bale’s first, you need incredible athleticism, superb timing and the skill of one of the finest footballers in the world. Saying that, the way Karius played it probably just needed to be on target.
I wouldn’t say it’s utter bollocks. When Ronaldo took his last minute penalty against Juventus he picked his spot in the top corner and hit the ball exactly there. When he scored his overhead kick he had an idea where he wanted to put it (and he would have practised the technique endlessly) but in the position he was in when he struck the ball he didn’t have the same degree of control and he couldn’t see where he was aiming. Which is not to say that overhead kicks, especially that far from the goal (and especially at the height from the ground Ronaldo’s was struck) are not amazing feats of athleticism and timing – that’s exactly what they are and plenty of quite accomplished professional footballers couldn’t pull them off. Bale must feel like Roy Of The Rovers after scoring a picture perfect OHK in a European Cup final!
Yes, perfectly described. It was an amazing goal obviously, and the athleticism and thechnique beyond almost any other footballer in the world – but you still need a bit of luck with you to bring something like that off. Worthy match winner for sure, and I reckon it wa that that did for Liverpool more than Karius’ aberrations.
As others have stated players with great technique and skill also practice but they also know where the goal is whether they are facing it or have their back to it.
When a player such as Bale attempt a bicycle kick they convert them into goals more often than not.
Carroll admitted after scoring this one he would often practice over head kicks. And when it works, it’s spectacular, and as much skill as chance.
Ramos had Salah in an armlock. That was the opinion of me and the rest of the blokes. Far too pissed to answer any of the other questions.
🏆🏆🏆EUROPEAN🏆🏆🏆FOOTBALL🏆🏆🏆ROYALTY🏆🏆🏆
Let’s not forget 🏆!
Looked to me like Ramos took out Salah with a judo throw. The pundits on BT were too mealy mouthed to offer an opinion beyond ‘I know Ramos and he would not have meant to injure Salah.’ But that was an opportunistic moment of cynicism.
The whole thing got to Karius – 2 terrible mistakes that did for his team. Hard not feel sorry for the bloke, and you’d like to think that ‘he’ll come back stronger.’ But that was so catastrophic a performance that his time at Liverpool could well be up.
Bale’s first goal was tremendous – good enough to win any game, even a final. Handy that Madrid had a £90m player to bring off the bench, too.
Re: droning pundit’s voices – Danny Murphy makes Gerrard, Lampard & Ferdinand sound like Michael Macintyre on a mega exstacy dose.
I used to think that no footy type could sound any more world weary & bummed out than Mark Lawrenson, but Murphy is SO miserable I had to watch the 2017 FA Cup Final with the sound down.
It must be said, the BT panel were dreadful & made the experience of watching my first big final on YouTube on a computer even stranger.
I’d love to say roll on the World Cup, but I’m barely looking forward to it, as the venue stinks to high heaven.
Just noticed that this post makes me seem as much of a buzz kill as D Murphy Esq
Should add I really enjoyed the match & was delighted to see Bale in truly sensational form!
Any thoughts on the alleged Ramos elbow to Karius’s left eye, just before the first goal. Concussion?
Re Bale’s ohk. As he went to hit the ball, mid-air, he took a quick glance at the goal and goalkeeper’s position and adjusted the force of his foot, so that it almost came off like a lob. The ball was quite high when it came to him and he adjusted himself beautifully.
Re: Bales first goal you are correct.
1. Yes, Ramos is a cynical, dirty bastard.
2. Karius made idiotic schoolboy errors which cost us the game.
3. No explanation for the Bale goal. Just one of those magic moments.
4. No idea.
5. Meh.
6. Karius does deserve credit. He’ll have a very tough time. But we all make mistakes. It’s “only” a game.
7. Hard to say. Liverpool have needed a world class keeper since before Klopp took over so….
8. Zidane will probably get the sack now….its what Real do!
9. Perhaps he’s growing runner beans?
10. Yes
11. No
12. In his own mind he always has been
13. Michael Owen, Mark Lawrenson
14. Yes, but it was free to watch on Youtube.
Very comprehensive answer, Wheldrake. I appreciate it. I’d forgotten how Michael Owen drains the world of life when he speaks.
However, you omitted answering the last question, the most important by far. Did Ronaldo get his hair done at half-time? Certainly looked like it to me.
Champions League is a competition that I really cannot sustain any interest in. A self-serving, self-perpetuating elite playing amongst themselves. It’s directly thanks to the money clubs take out of this competition (I refuse to say they earn it) that has had the knock-on effect of most of Europe’s leagues becoming virtually non-competitive at the top – I very much doubt we’ll ever see a club like Leicester ever again winning the league in England, Spain, Germany etc. I’d possibly pay attention in the (never happening) event of it becoming the competition it used to be, a knock-out cup for league champions only.
I was far more interested in the play-off final myself. Thoroughly deserved promotion for Fulham, who earned it over the course of the season. Play-off semi-final defeat was about right for my lot, far too inconsistent all season. And of course some sadistic pleasure in seeing the loathsome John Terry on the wrong end of the result…
Leicester’s triumph seemed bloody extraordinary at the time, but the longer you look at it the more incredible it is. Especially when you consider the last two months, which should have been “squeaky bum time” for a bunch of players who had never been in that position, were completed with the same apparent insouciance as those races where Steve Ovett used to spend the last 50 metres waving to the crowd…
Before Leicester won the title, nobody could foresee that a team like Leicester would ever win the title again.
That’s right. Before Leicester, the last ‘new’ team to win the top tier title was Nottingham Forest in 1978. A long time ago.
I said we’ll be paying for that fantastic Leicester season for many, many years to come. They so took the piss!
A canter to the title by Man. City, two truly dreadful domestic finals played out by the same dull, familiar names – none of whom actually really want to win them – and Chelsea scooping up everything else (Chelsea Ladies and, of course, their pointless annual Youth Cup win), does nothing to dispel my theory.
Still, we’ll always have Leicester.
“There are 11 players in the team lads”
“Yeah but only one of them let the ball through his legs”
Yet again the Porridge film nearly predicts the future.
Going into the match, Real Madrid were the slight favourites regardless of the laurels placed on Liverpool’s attack. The magnificent triumvirate of Firmino, Mane and Salah has been breathtaking this season, and they deserve all the plaudits they get. They’ve not been the only ones to impress me this year though – Robertson, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, Van Diijk and Milner all have reasons to be proud of their perfomances too. As does Loris Karius
Until his brainfreeze at the beginning of the second-half, he’d actually played reasonably well. He was alert to danger, and his save against Cristiano Ronaldo’s close-range header was particularly noteworthy (as was Navas’s save against Alexander-Arnold’s low drive at the other end).
After Salah’s injury (deliberate or not), Liverpool were always on the back-foot and Real Madrid’s experience and gamesmanship soon began to show. The first goal was gutting, for everyone involved. Mane’s equaliser offered some hope, but it always felt too little. Bale’s bicycle-kick was joyful, and I would’ve happily accepted a 1-0 defeat if that’d been the decider. His second, like the opener was horrible to watch, but by that time I’d accepted the inevitable.
Karius deserves credit for apologising, but I also think he shouldn’t have to. I hope we stick by him next-season because nobody deserves to go through what he’s going through at the moment. I also hope Salah’s shoulder injury isn’t as bad as feared, and that he manages to entertain at the World Cup, though that’s looking doubtful.
Death threats for Karius. For fucks sake…
Hope for Salah. Doesn’t sound as though shoulder is as bad as feared.
‘Death threats for Karius?’, what from the best fans in the world? Nah, I’m not having that.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44275380
On the BT Sport “UCL Uncut” video doing the rounds there’s another camera angle showing the Ramos/Salah “falling down” and it definitely does NOT look as if Ramos is deliberately holding him as they fall. The main angle we all saw on Saturday DOES make it look that way. The shot of Ramos smiling with the linesman really means nothing.
I suppose we’ll never know.
But as Ramos is such a serial scumbag I know which I think is more likely.
He’s a cheat.