Although Barcelona has already celebrated its La Liga title, the stakes are as high as ever ahead of this spring's edition of El Clasico. Real Madrid will almost certainly finish the season in second or third, but they'll be plenty motivated to keep Barcelona from joining the ranks of invincible soccer teams.
Liverpool booked their ticket to the 2018 Champions League Final against Real Madrid on Wednesday with a 7-6 aggregate win over Roma. Now that the semifinals are over, all the attention now shifts to the final in Kiev, and rightly so. But have Liverpool already won the match before it’s even started? Here’s why that might be the case.
In the aftermath of Real Madrid’s extremely fortunate 4-3 aggregate victory over Bayern Munich and Liverpool’s bonkers 7-6 win over Roma, expect two storylines to dominate the headlines in the buildup to Kiev: (1) this is a very different Real Madrid side than previous incarnations (let's be clear here: they’re charmed, not favored — they haven’t gotten the help that Barcelona got against PSG in 2017) and (2) if defending is an art, Liverpool is Jackson Pollock — their backline
Roma scored what may have been the prettiest match-winner in the Champions League this season. But the celebrations following the Radja Nainggolan goal vs Liverpool were as muted as could be, because the Reds had more than enough cushion to hold on for a 7-6 aggregate victory in the Champions League semifinals on Wednesday in Rome.
Liverpool is almost certainly into the 2018 Champions League Final holding, at the time of writing this, a 7–3 aggregate lead over Roma. They’ve equalled Roma’s away goal tally, but they’ve also conceded a brilliant own goal involving Real Madrid’s favorite defensive liability, Dejan Lovren.
The goal was scored by the greatest playmaker the Champions League has ever seen, James Milner, and I think you can already tell how special this is.
In the end, Bayern Munich only has itself to blame. If you want to get particular about it, it’s left back Rafinha and goalkeeper Sven Ulreich who deserve the most condemnation. The duo absolutely gifted Real Madrid two of its four goals, a devastating bit of self-sabotage against the back-to-back world champion.
The showdowns between Real Madrid and Barcelona, taking place at least twice per year, are the premier sporting events in Spain. Millions around the world tune in to watch the two richest teams in the world’s most popular sport face off in perhaps the world’s greatest rivalry. Earlier this week, we took a look at how the number of worldwide El Clasico viewers compared to the Super Bowl, the biggest event in Spain compared to the biggest event in the U.S.
If Real Madrid wins a third straight Champions League title on May 26 in Kiev, Cristiano Ronaldo and company will have earned every bit of it. Karim Benzema scored two goals for Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich on Tuesday at the Bernabeu as the Merengues advanced to the Champions League final for the third straight year with a 2-2 draw and 4-3 aggregate victory.