Mo Salah has claimed that Liverpool ‘deserved’ to defeat Real Madrid in this season’s Champions League final and lift the trophy for the seventh time.
The Reds fell to a 1-0 defeat against the Spaniards in the Stade de France in Paris with the final marred by disturbing scenes outside the stadium as fans were tear gassed by French police, mugged by locals and denied entry into the stadium.
“We deserved to win, we had more chances, I got two or three quite big ones but, each time, Thibaut Courtois made incredible saves,” the Egyptian told L’Equipe (via the Evening Standard).
“It’s his job, Real recruited him for that. He earned his Man of the Match award. It was his evening.”
The Egyptian King had six shots on target alone in the French capital whilst Luis Diaz and Sadio Mane also went close to netting for the Reds.
Jurgen Klopp’s side did taste victory in the competition when they defeated Spurs in the final back in 2019, but they’ve now lost two finals to the La Liga giants after also being defeated in Kyiv in 2018.
Although we had chances and Thibaut Courtois had one of his best ever games, we didn’t really reach the levels that we know we’re capable of and Madrid punished us for that.
They had one big chance and Vinicius Junior took it and they never looked back.
The season may have very well took its toll on the lads – the Champions League final was our 63rd game of the season and it was clear that some of the lads had nothing left to give.
Our campaign did end disappointingly without Premier League or Champions League success, but the club and the players can still be immensely proud of their efforts – we still added two trophies to our already impressive collection.
We go again next season!