Titans Liverpool and Real Madrid clash in re-run of Champions League final

A re-run of the last final of the European Champions League only nine months after the event feels a little too soon. Or at least it does to the head coaches involved in Real Madrid versus Liverpool.

Carlo Ancelotti and Jurgen Klopp's experience of finals in this competition surpasses that of any other manager in this season’s last-16 phase. One of them must leave this European Cup prematurely.

If Liverpool are eliminated, a gloom will be cast over their season, an extra urgency injected into the salvaging of a domestic campaign that stuttered badly either side of a World Cup disruptive to most elite clubs but perhaps especially to the Merseysiders.

Their style of football feeds on gathering momentum and an intense rhythm. Interrupt those and the Liverpool method is put at risk.

The mood, though, is much improved at Anfield from 10 days ago, when an exit from the FA Cup, and a run of four Premier League matches yielding just one point were being digested. Everton have since been beaten at Anfield and a stubborn Newcastle United overcome at the weekend.

“We looked a lot more like a team again,” said Klopp, “but we still need results.”

Liverpool remain eighth in a league where last season they were still chasing top spot on the last afternoon.

The gap to the top four is seven points, and even if Liverpool have matches in hand on fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur, there is a strong argument that the challenge of qualifying for next season’s Champions League looks as easily met by winning the current edition as by finishing in the top four of a fiercely competitive Premier League.

Under Klopp, after all, Liverpool have made reaching Champions League finals almost an expectation. They have featured in three of the last five.