Liverpool’s weak point that Real Madrid must use to destroy them in the Champions League final

Liverpool will try to overcome their disappointment in the Premier League by lifting the European Cup for the seventh time next Saturday when they face Real Madrid in the Champions League final.

There may be no longer any hope of a historic quartet, but Jurgen Klopp’s men will be very excited to get the job done in Paris and finish the brilliant season at the highest level.

Despite facing the Spanish champions, Liverpool will come to the meeting as the bookmakers’ favourite, a testament to how good Klopp’s men have been in recent months.

In this competition, they faced their fair share of elite opposition that included last season’s champions Italy and Spain, which made it even more impressive as they won 12 of their 13 Champions League matches.

It was less clear for Real Madrid, led by Carlo Ancelotti, who suffered defeat in one of their matches against Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and Manchester City in the knockout stages en route to the final. They have shown great character and made an unforgettable comeback, yet many expect Liverpool’s intensity and quality to be too much for them in this game.

While Liverpool can boast being the stronger side in most areas, there is still a weakness that could cost them dearly against Real Madrid as a result of their notorious defensive line.

Many opponents face Liverpool by falling back into their defensive half when they are without the ball, aiming to stay together with the vision of narrowing the space for Liverpool players to exploit.

As a result, the Liverpool central defender rushes to the midfield, and sometimes beyond, trapping the opponent inside their own half. And when Klopp’s team loses the ball, he counterpresses and is good at it.

As the defensive line advances, opponents don’t have much space to try out from their half, and as a result often have to pass long distances, bringing possession Liverpool back to control once again.

It has long been accepted that as a result of this approach, teams sometimes overcame Liverpool’s offside trap and got the chance to score very valuable goals.

The final problem is that teams now seem to be more successful than ever in terms of creating offensive schemes that allow them to get behind Liverpool’s defensive line and have good scoring chances on a semi-regular basis.

According to the data of Liverpool goalkeeper performance analyst, “Alison Becker” @Jhdarrison1, Liverpool faced 56 singles in the league last season. Only three teams in the Premier League – Norwich, Newcastle and Leeds – have faced more.

It’s worth remembering that these teams tend to spend more time without the ball than Liverpool. In terms of style, Manchester City are the most similar to Liverpool, and have faced only 32 singles this season.

Liverpool have been penalized far less than other teams could have, thanks in large part to Alisson Becker who has proven to be the best in the Premier League in one-on-one moments.

However, Liverpool are now largely reliant on keeping fit and performing at these levels to avoid their style of play costing them dearly. Even with Alisson at his best, he is still unable to tackle all these opportunities, and this brings us to Saturday’s match with Real Madrid.

Although Real Madrid can prove to be lucky to reach this stage, they are still one of the best European teams that can do great damage to the big teams. One of the ways they can penalize Liverpool, with all the above information in mind, is to create movements that pull Liverpool players and open the door for passes played towards attack for strikers like Vinicius Jr to initiate counter-attacks.

Vinicius is a right-footed striker who usually plays to the left of Madrid’s attack, with goals scored as important as his creation for Ancelotti’s men – he’s scored 21 goals in all competitions this season.

We can almost be sure he will aim to play on the shoulder of Liverpool’s defense on Saturday or look to take advantage of the spaces that Trent Alexander-Arnold has when he goes up to attack, setting himself up to run on balls passed to him to start the attack.

These above numbers suggest that Real Madrid will be given at least one chance to score through such attacks on Saturday, and thus Liverpool will again look to Alisson to do what he does best.

Source: Mirror