2021-22 UEFA Champions League

Courtois was superb, monstrous performance in the few times he was called upon to make really good saves - one from Salah and the other was Mane I think?

Casemiro was also incredible, particularly in the second half, he was everywhere intercepting and breaking up play. The way the Madrid players were able to be some calm, composed and accurate in their passing through the press in the second half and trying to see the game out was also superb the majority of the time. Dragging the pool players out of position to leave the gaps for the counters, in Liverpools defence Konate was also super at covering and they dealt well with most of what Madrid threw at them.

The right team won on the night, the team who took their chance(s) when they came. I was surprised they managed to hold out pool for the 90 minutes. For whatever reason the goalscoring touch left Liverpool in all the finals this season. Its not easy competing for the biggest trophies, tell you what though - Madrid must have had one of the hardest runs (on paper at least!) to the final

Was it, Chelsea - PSG - City - Pool? Thats some gauntlet like, fair play to them.

This new quote feature is a pain.

he flagged for the initial benzema chance which was not offside. granted, i cant actually remember but if that was offside var wouldn't have spent 5 mins looking at the 2nd offside.

now, if you're saying the linesman flagged for the 2nd offside...well thats just ludacris from the linesman. no way in the world can someone make a split second decision on that when it takes a team with all the camera angles and slow mo a few mins to reach a conclusion.

either way (IMO) whichever offside call you are talking about, the linesman was incorrect to flag it.

Like many other examples it really just shows VAR has solved nothing really.

Perhaps the organisers are just not planning for the worse case scenarios especially in the number of stewards and police they are hiring for events. It woukd explain why police were so agressive if they thought they had a lack of backup.

The Madrid fans reporting how bad it was in Paris as well.

90 euros to leave the neighborhood

That is what is said about the spanish police too. But i think that image may have resulted in no problems in the europa league final between rangers and frankfurt, both of which had fans with not so long afo histories of fans behaving badly. Possibly those parisian youths wouldnt have tried something if they feared the police more.

The locals seemed to have caused a lot of issues, and were the ones storming the gates and jumping in without tickets. Some even being let in easily.

So instead of having proper security checks on the outskirts of the stadium, they instead just funnelled fans into narrow avenues and locked the gates to keep everyone out instead causing a massive problem.

Lots of stories of people with real tickets being rejected and told they had fakes, including tickets directly from the players and press being told their press passes were fake. Shambles of an set up.

Have to wonder how much of an affect it had on the players too. 2 delays to the kick off time, and knowing that their friends, family and fans were caught up in all the trouble outside.

Again the turnstiles were never a problem before today. No one without a ticket gets anywhere near the turnstiles at any big game I was ever at.

Detailed, insightful reporting, from an actual witness, by Kaveh Solhekol  again. But I suppose the keyboard warriors from their Irish bedrooms know better.

Individual experiences do not necessarily contradict the figures the french were quoting. 70 per cent of tickets being fake does seem like an extoardinary hugh number. The french are not going to accept criticism from the british that is clear. Too much bad blood between the two as s result of brexit.

These conversations make it appear as if winstonia83 is afraid to take on the PepsiChallenge.

Yes, watch the above sky sports report.

It's absolutely a smokescreen. I haven't heard of any Liverpool fans complaining about fake tickets. I'm sure there were some around as there were touts about but this industrial level faking isn't possible at the numbers they said in the press conference.

All the first hand experiences are of people with genuine tickets not getting in or being told that their genuine ticket was fake.

I've never seen anything of this magnitude anywhere either. It was completely shambolic and they've lied from the start to try and save face.

70% of tickets were fake? 30k fans without tickets turning up as well? Patently false.

As the guy from Sky Sports said, be very very cautious in how you take the remarks coming from that press conference because it's from one side only and is in direct contradiction to what was seen on the concourse.

This is all before we get to the tear gas at the fanzone, the police intimidation inside the ground at the end of the day and the local French people assaulting fans on the way home

Parisian Thierry Henry on US TV..

i think you’re misinterpreting what Klopp said.

It wasn’t “they were rubbish except for their goalkeeper”, it was “if their goalkeeper is having a stormer, you’re in trouble”. No different to if Benzema had scored three and if Klopp had said “if their striker is MOTM, things are going wrong for the other team”.

In a way we are lucky that we are living in the social media age and can see all the evidence ourselves. What really happened and how much it contradicts what the French officials are saying. We've seen how other football games have been affected by distaster and cover ups by governments before. And the decades of vitrol, abuse and stigmas that followed too seems to be still stuck in the mindset of a some.

Jake Humphrey went was quick to parrot the line about Liverpool fans showing up late live on air on BT Sports, which was seen by millions live at the time. While at the same time, the previous lead BT Sports presenter Gary Linekar was telling what was really happening. Jake Humphrey later quietly tweeted the next day thanking Liverpool fans for helping his elderly parents who were caught up in the trouble outside. He now knew the true story but still didn't apologise for the mis-information he was happy to tell everyone the previous night in the midst of it all. I'm sure BT knew what was happening but somehow chose not to report it.

The French seem to be changing their story, and changing it behind the scenes. First they blame 'the late arrival of fans ' when when videos from before the game show fans being there over 2.5 hours before kick off and being blocked out by that police and then locked gates, they have now changed their story to 'fake tickets' with some wild numbers being bandied about and don't make sense at it would show that tens of thousands of 'fake tickets' would have had to get through their first security steps. "Industrial scale" production of fake tickets they said, so you would expect a lot of journalists and fans to lay eyes on these or have them with them. But they are yet to be seen. Of course there will be a few fake tickets for large events, there always is, "industrial scale" would suggest a much much greater amount. Where are the thousands of confiscated fake tickets?

Disgusting lies coming from UEFA

Have never been to Paris and never want to, sounds like an absolute kip. And as for the French police, what a way to treat tourists from Spain and England coming to your city to spend money and enjoy themselves.

One of The Anfield Wrap (podcast) guys was asked for a bribe by a steward at the turnstiles to let him in AFTER scanning his ticket he got in the ballot. Basically saying yeah you have a ticket it's good but you have to make it worth my while to open the gate.

This is at the biggest sporting event in Europe.

Henry Winter tonight in the Times

No part of official version of events in Paris rings true

The chaotic scenes at the Stade de France were a PR disaster for the French state – but the authorities have really outdone themselves with shameful response to the backlash

I was on a teams call with one of our clients this morning, he's a big football fan so you can imagine what took up 90% of the call. Anyway he tells me this from the weekend, his company had a box and about 30 clients invited to the game. The corporate entrance was closed at their side for whatever reason so they had to try enter in through the normal gates. One of the clients got his ticket confiscated by security and they told him it was fake. He told them under no circumstances was it fake as he was presented the ticket in an involope from one of the stadiums corporate manages. Security guard went off then and came back 5 minutes later and told him he could buy it back off him for €1000 if he wanted!!!