Liverpool vs Real Madrid: It's a meeting of 'mentality monsters' in Champions League final

Real Madrid. La Decimocuarta (the 14th) awaits, but Liverpool, with six triumphs, are no historical upstarts themselves. In the European domain, the Reds have recently been proclaimed the 'comeback kings' but we all know, this season, Karim Benzema & Co have been conjuring miraculous recoveries.

Perhaps, Pep Guardiola's cathartic tears after holding his Premier League cup of joy was a release from those soul-wrenching blurry moments of late destruction by Madrid’s daydream believers. PSG, Chelsea all got that shock treatment and maybe at the end of it all, only FC Sheriff from Moldova will get boasting rights of defeating the 'champions' at the Bernabeu on a September night. Whoa! Not yet… It all begins and ends in Paris.

Again, so apt, because it is the 'home' of the European Cup. It was 41 years ago that the protagonist clubs jostled for the trophy in the French capital. Then two-time winners Liverpool nudged six-time champs Real in a forgettable final for the neutrals.

The game was described as 'chloroform football' and left-back Alan Kennedy, still a sprightly 67-year-old, manufactured a goal from a narrow angle to settle the scores. "I remember (our manager) Bob Paisley telling us that it will take only one goal to win this game," he says on the club’s official YouTube channel. It is also no coincidence that Carlo Ancelotti will be aiming to surpass Paisley and Zinedine Zidane with a fourth trophy.

The Italian journeyman, of course, had endured the Reds' 'six minutes of madness' in Istanbul 2005 only to re-establish the order for AC Milan in Athens 2007. Juergen Klopp met Ancelotti's Everton four times in Merseyside derbies with one win each and two draws - you can't get closer than that. There is synchronicity and