Thiago Alcantara has explained that he and his Liverpool teammates are ‘excited to play’ Saturday’s FA Cup final clash with Chelsea.
The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich man labelled Thomas Tuchel’s side as ‘one of the best teams in the world’ and knows that they will pose the Reds a ‘difficult’ challenge at Wembley.
“We are really excited to play – not just the competition itself but a final. We’re ready for it. It doesn’t matter if we didn’t win [it] before or for a long time. It’s just about a trophy that we can win and we add in our backpack this new challenge,” the Spaniard told the club’s official website (via Anfield Watch).
“We’re looking forward to it. Wembley is an amazing stadium. It’s special itself but then you know that Wembley is used for special moments. There’s different context and we’re ready to go to London.
“It’s a new game and we will prepare it as it must be prepared, nothing else. [We] understand that we are playing against one of the best teams in the world and we know it will be tight, we know it’s always difficult.
“They want to take something that we want to take as well. It’s a continuous fight with this kind of team. The best team will win.”
Thiago was injured in the warm up before our Carabao Cup final clash against Chelsea in February, but the midfielder did star in our FA Cup semi-final victory over Manchester City last month.
Our No. 6 has the ability to control games and orchestrate things from the middle of the park, but without Fabinho in the side on Saturday after he picked up an injury at Villa Park on Tuesday, Thiago will have to be more disciplined than ever.
Jordan Henderson is expected to operate in the defensive midfield role and all of the lads will have to be on it right from the start to ensure we get our hands on our first FA Cup since 2006.
Both of our league fixtures against the Stamford Bridge outfit ended as draws this season as well as the League Cup final which had to be decided via a penalty shootout after a goalless draw.
We may be set for another tight affair this weekend but hopefully it’s us that come out on top again to send the travelling Kopites back to Merseyside smiling.