Champions League final recap

The Champions League is over, and the final was not representative of this year’s competition. This has been one of the best Champions League campaigns in recent years, however, the final was quite boring and did not have a lot of quality. This Champions League will be remembered for the introduction of VAR and the drama that it brought with it. It will be remembered for all the comebacks that occurred throughout the group stage and knockout stage. It will be remembered that the two finalists both needed the last group game only to make it to the knockout round. However, this final did not live up to expectations and probably will not be remembered. The final had barely started when Liverpool were awarded a 22-second penalty after the ball struck Sissoko on the arm in the box. Salah stepped up and scored the resulting penalty. This killed the game from the start because both teams seemed nervous and the early goal didn’t help. In the first half, nothing really happened and neither team had any good chances apart from the penalty. During the second half, the game came alive a little more but was still pretty mundane. Tottenham tried to get into the game and were the better side for large parts of the match, but all their efforts did not really test Allison. In the 87th minute, Liverpool were given a corner, which Spurs did not deal with properly and the ball fell to the semi-final hero, Origi, who coolly finished into the bottom right-hand corner to end the game and give Liverpool their first Champions League trophy since 2005 and their 6th Champions League trophy. Pochettino might be ruing the fact that he decided to start Kane over Lucas as Kane was just coming back from a two-month injury lay off and was not fully match fit. This could be seen as he was ineffective and had the least touches of any player in the first half. Klopp will be delighted that after losing 6 straight finals he has finally won a trophy with Liverpool, their first since 2012. Pochettino, on the other hand, is still looking for his first trophy and will want to invest in his squad this summer to come back stronger next season. Klopp and his team will now have a bit of time off to relax before they come back again next season and try to win the Premier League.