Goal bound Spur’s Harry Kane, left, and Liverpool’s Sadio Mane, right
\The 2019 Champions League final is almost here and while there are still plenty of unknowns to discover, there are also lots of things, which are pretty much certain to happen.
So, at the end of a season in which so much has been unexpected, let’s take a look at some elements of this Tottenham v Liverpool meeting that are comfortingly predictable.
Sadio certain to be Liverpool’s Mane man
Twelve months ago, Liverpool’s build-up to their Champions League final against Real Madrid was dominated by the importance of Mohamed Salah to their chances and, given his team’s struggles after he went off injured, rightly so.
Now, of the Reds’ enviable Sadio Mane has arguably become the key figure. He shared the Premier League’s Golden Boot with Salah and Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, but take away penalties and Mane would have been three clear of any other player.
The Senegal forward scored Liverpool’s only goal in the 2018 final and if he nets against Spurs he will be the first player to score in the final in consecutive years since Franz Roth for Bayern Munich in 1975 and 1976.
He comes alive in the knockout stages, with 71% of his Champions League goals coming after the groups – the highest proportion of any player with 10 or more – and his expected goals total of 7.8 (excluding penalties) in this season’s tournament is exactly 2.0 higher than any other player in 2018-19 and only 1.1 lower than Manchester United managed in their entire European campaign.
As a result, all the signs point to Mane being the most important figure in the match… except one.
The man who has scored 80% of his Premier League goals within two miles of the English coast has to perform in a Champions League final being staged in one of the only major European cities not built by a river or a seafront. Will he sink or swim? Harry Kane is in contention to start for Spurs after recovery from injury.
Whoever wins the 2019 Champions League, will make a history of sorts
It’s the first final between two non-group winners since 2010, the first not to feature a team who has actually won their domestic league title in the 21st Century (Liverpool and Spurs’ combined league drought of 87 years seems, and is, a lot), and we know that the winning side will end the season with four defeats, a new record for the Champions League in its current format.
Manchester United, in 2007-08, remain the most recent team to become the European champions without losing a game, while AC Milan’s poor record – at first glance at least – of three defeats in 2006-07 was skewed by losses in their final two group games when the section was won.
Liverpool and Tottenham’s progress through the group stage was anything but serene, with the Reds losing all three of their away games in the autumn and Tottenham virtually eliminated three matches into their ‘group of death’, which also included Barcelona, Inter Milan and PSV. They scraped through with a negative goal difference and six months later are one game from immortality.
Whoever wins, they will have underlined how unpredictable this season, and the Champions League in general, has become. Source: BBC
