Trent Alexander-Arnold had full confidence that Liverpool would overcome Tottenham in the 2019 Champions League final, despite falling at the final hurdle 12 months earlier.
Four years have passed since the Reds lifted the European Cup for the sixth time at the Wanda Metropolitano, where a late Divock Origi strike capped a historic night in the Spanish capital.
Any final is a night of nerves for supporters, but the Liverpool youngster had no doubts that Jurgen Klopp’s side would cross the line.
Reflecting on the final, Alexander-Arnold insisted that there was “no way” the Reds were going to pass up another opportunity to get their hands on the trophy.
“It just felt right, if I’m honest,” the 24-year-old told LADbible in a recent interview. “We knew, 100 per cent we knew there was no way they’d beat us. There was no way. There was not really any doubt amongst us.
“It wasn’t like we were screaming from the rooftops saying ‘we’ve won’. It was if we all do our jobs, there’s no way they’ll beat us. We knew we were the much better team.”
It is a staggering level of assurance from Alexander-Arnold, who was just 20 years old when the final was played, but after amassing 97 Premier League points and overcoming a 3-0 semi-final deficit against Barcelona, the faith was justified.
An early Mohamed Salah penalty gave the Reds the lead in Madrid before Origi’s late goal ensured that Liverpool were crowned European Champions for the first time in 14 years.
The right-back, who ended the 2022/23 season in a hybrid midfield role, believed that Liverpool had too much for Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham despite having only experienced one other final as a group.
“We had a players’ meeting, I want to say maybe on the Thursday, but the only final we’d been in was the Champions League final the year before, which was a strange one in how they handled winning the game taught us so much,” he explained.
“We just played the game that we needed to play, there was nothing too special about it, we defended well and did what we needed to do to win.”
Liverpool have since gone on to reach a third final in five seasons at the 2022 showpiece in Paris, ultimately losing 1-0 to Real Madrid on a night marred by dangerous policing.
All but one of Klopp’s Champions League campaigns at the club have ended at the hands of either Atletico Madrid or Real Madrid, with the outlier being the 2019 victory in Madrid itself.
Fan Comments