The Champions League Final Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool

We have just over two weeks until the Champions League final and we cannot wait. It will be an all English final for only the second time in history with the first coming in 2008 when Manchester United played Chelsea. This final will be between Liverpool and Tottenham and it promises to be a cracker. Both teams were put in two of the hardest groups at the start if the competition. They have had to face hard competition in this tournament, and both had to produce marvellous comebacks in the semi-final to get through.

Let’s start with Liverpool, who were placed in a group with PSG, Napoli and Red Star Belgrade. Liverpool lost all three of their away games in the group stage and needed to beat Napoli in the final game of the season to go through. They won 1-0 and have to thank Allison who saved a one-on-one shot in the 90th minute. They then were placed against Bayern, which they drew the first leg 0-0 and then beat them 1-3 in the second leg in the Allianz Arena. Their quarter-final match was against Porto in which they won both legs comfortably with an aggregate score of 6-1. In the semi-final, they had to get past Barcelona in their toughest test of the season. In the first leg they didn’t play badly, however, Messi was having a magical night and scored two goals as well as Suarez getting one against his old club to leave Liverpool on the verge of being kicked out of the competition. In the second leg, Liverpool didn’t have Salah or Firminho and it looked like Barcelona were going to go through. However, Liverpool got an early goal from Origi to give slight hope. Two early goals in the second half put Liverpool level on aggregate with Barcelona. Then in the 79th minute and moment of brilliance from Alexander-Arnold and Origi gave Liverpool the fourth goal they needed to avoid extra time and send them to their second final in a row.

Spurs were placed in a group with Barcelona, Inter, and PSV. After the first three-game weeks Spurs only had one point and it looked like they were set for the Europe League or even out of Europe in general. However, after wins against PSV and Inter, they faced Barcelona in their final match just needed to match Inter’s score against PSV. It looked set to be over for Spurs as they were losing 1-0 until the 85th minute were Lucas scored to level the game and Inter drew 1-1 with PSV and sent Spurs to the next round against Dortmund. Dortmund were flying high at the time and it seemed like they would beat Spurs comfortably. This did not happen, as Spurs were the ones who won comfortably 3-0 at home and the 0-1 away. In the quarter-finals, they had to face fellow English side Manchester City. Tottenham won the first game narrowly 1-0. The second leg was one of the greatest matches in Champions League history as within the first 10 minutes the game was already at 2-2. City scored two more to put the tie in their favor on aggregate, however, Llorente scored in the 73rd minute to make it 4-4 with Spurs having the advantage on away goals. City thought they won it in the 94th minute when Sterling scored to send the Etihad into a frenzy only for the referee to disallow it for offside after a VAR review. Spurs went through to their first semi-final in the Champions League against Ajax. Ajax won the first game in London 0-1 and then took a 2-0 lead into half time in the second leg. This left Spurs on the brink, however, two early goals in the second half from Lucas gave them hope. Then in the 96th minute of the match, Lucas got the ball from Alli to score his hattrick and put Tottenham into their first European final.