UEFA Champions League Final 2022 Preview

UEFA CHAMPION LEAGUE FINAL 2022 | LIVERPOOL VS REAL MADRID

This Saturday night, just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis, two giants of European football come head to head at the Stade de France to contest the biggest game in club football with free live streaming on BT Sport.

BT Sport has announced that the 2022 UEFA Champions League Final will be available for everyone in the UK to watch for free on YouTube; as well as TV, online or on mobile.

Our UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE PREVIEW Articles are brought to you in partnership with EPL Index, and Dave Hendrick – host of the Two Footed Podcast, offering FREE podcasts to football fans.

Real Madrid vs Liverpool in the Champions League final is European royalty competing to take home the most important prize in the game. Real, 13 times winners, are the undisputed kings of the competition. This is their fifth final in the past nine years, and 17th overall. Real have won 13 European Cups, six more than any other club. Real’s dominance has been such that no two teams combined have won more the Madrid side.

UEFA Champions League Final 2022

⚽ Liverpool vs Real Madrid
📅 Saturday 28 May 2022
⏰ 2000 UK Kick-Off
🖥️ Free Live YouTube Streaming

Liverpool have won six European Cups, an impressive achievement in its own right of course. Only Real and seven time winners AC Milan can claim to have conquered Europe more often. This will be Liverpool’s 10th European Cup final and their third in the past five years. Under Jurgen Klopp they have become one of the best teams in Europe and will be looking to add a second European Cup under the German’s watch.

This is the third time these clubs have met in a European Cup final, and both sides have come away victorious in the past. In 1981 Liverpool triumphed at the Parc des Princes in Paris, a 1-0 victory thanks to a late Alan Kennedy goal. When the sides met in 2018 in Kiev, it was Real who brought the cup home after a 3-1 victory thanks to Karim Benzema’s opener and then two from Gareth Bale who came off the bench to change the game.

In total this will be the ninth meeting between the sides in the European Cup, and Real hold a slight advantage historically but have been more dominant in recent years. The first meeting was that final in 1981 and the sides didn’t meet again until the round of 16 in 2009. Liverpool won both games, including a 4-0 demolition of Madrid at Anfield. That victory was Liverpool’s last against Madrid. In 14/15 the sides met in the group stage, with Real winning both games. Then Real won that final in 2018, and last season they met at the quarter final stage. A depleted Liverpool, lacking anything resembling a senior central defender, lost 3-1 in Madrid before the second leg at Anfield ended 0-0.

Real’s history of success is, as mentioned above, unmatched. Their love affair with the European Cup began with them winning it five times in a row between 1956 and 1960. They were victorious again in 1966, but then the drought set in. Real didn’t win the competition again until 1998, a success that was followed up in 2000 and again in 2002. A 12 year wait ended in 2014 when Carlo Ancelotti became only the second man to win the Champions League three times as a manager, having previously won two with AC Milan. A third added their name to that list when Zinedine Zidane oversaw three-in-a-row in 2016, 2017 and 2018, with Liverpool of course the victims in that last final.

It’s quite incredible that Real have managed to win 13 of their previous 16 finals, and even more impressive that they have won their last seven in a row. 1962, 1964 and that 1981 final against Liverpool saw them taste defeat, and they have somehow managed to avoid that experience again since.

Liverpool’s track record, while not as glowing as Real’s, isn’t bad. England’s most successful club first experience the joy of being Kings of Europe in 1977 and then repeated as winners in 1978. Bob Paisley became the first man to win three European Cups as manager when Liverpool were successful again in 1981. Joe Fagan oversaw a fourth European success in 1984, and it’s worth remembering that English clubs won the European Cup every year bar one between 1977 and 1984. Only Hamburg in 1983 interrupted the run of English dominance.

The Heysel stadium disaster in 1985 saw Liverpool banned from European for the rest of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s and it took the Reds a long time to find their way back to the mountaintop. Rafa Benitez oversaw arguably the biggest shock in European Cup history as Liverpool, who finished 5th in England that season, shocked AC Milan in Istanbul. Another long wait followed before Klopp’s men defeated Spurs in Madrid in 2019.

Liverpool’s defeats in European Cup finals have all been heartbreakers. Firstly Heysel in 1985, a game that should never have taken place and was decided in Juventus’ favour by a penalty that should never have been given. Then in 2007, they lost 2-1 to an AC Milan team who shouldn’t have been in the competition after their part in the Calciopolli scandal which saw them found guilty of bribing match officials. And then there is that night in Kiev.

Real went into the final as favourites, Liverpool as upstarts beginning to really find their way under Jurgen Klopp. Sergio Ramos’ thuggery, which including intentional injuring Mo Salah and forcing the Egyptian out of the game after only half an hour, followed up by his blatant elbow to the temple of Loris Karius which caused the German to suffer a concussion, is what truly decided the game. Without Salah, Liverpool were blunt in attack. And Karius, clearly compromised, gifted the game to Real. He practically threw the ball off Karim Benzema for the opener, and then spilled Bale’s long range effort to wrap things up.

Real were the better team on the night, there is no doubt about that, but victory was not achieved by purely being the better team and Liverpool have not forgotten that.

This Saturday night, a massively improved Liverpool team will take on a Real Madrid side that simply aren’t as good as they were in 2018. Many of the same old faces remain. Carvajal, Modric, Casemiro, Kroos and Benzema all started in 2018 and will likely start again. Benzema is the only one who can claim to be better than he was back then. Modric, Kroos and Casemiro are still great players but not nearly at the level they were at four years ago. The new signings aren’t of the level of those they replaced, bar Courtois and Alaba, and despite some big money moves for the likes of Eden Hazard, Real don’t have the same level of high end talent they had in 2018.

Liverpool on the other hand are better across the board. In every position. Those who remain are better than they were in 2018, bar captain Jordan Henderson who has undoubtedly declined. But even Henderson, who will play as an 8 rather than a 6, still represents an upgrade on James Milner who played that number 8 position four years ago. Liverpool’s new additions are all upgrades on what was there before. This Liverpool team is better than that Liverpool team. Will that make the difference in a one off final? Who knows.

What we do know is that this Liverpool side looked tired in recent weeks. While Real had the ability to rest and rotate in recent weeks after wrapping up La Liga with weeks to spare, Liverpool carried hopes of an unprecedented quadruple into the final week of the Premier League season. They have two cups wrapped up, but fell just short in the Premier League.

The Reds have injury doubts over Fabinho and Thiago Alcantara. The Brazilian says he will be ready to start but the Spaniard is likely to only make the bench based on recent reports. That’s a blow for Liverpool but Naby Keita has played very well this season and is a more than capable deputy. Real are expected to be at full strength with David Alaba fully recovered from the injury he suffered in the semi-final against Manchester City.

This game promises so much, here’s hoping it delivers.

No matter where you are, you can use your Liberty Shield VPN to find a way to watch the UEFA Champions League Final. Don’t have a Liberty Shield VPN? You’re missing out! Click right here to check out what we can offer you, and use the code EPL25 to get a 25% OFF your VPN or VPN Router at check-out.

How to watch every UEFA Champions League match from anywhere…

How can I watch the UEFA Champions League on BT Sport live?

BT Sport typically show Premier League games in the weekly Saturday lunchtime slot but they do show additional matches. You can sign up for a BT Sport subscription or pick up a contract-free BT Sport monthly pass for £25.

BT Sport will also carry coverage of the UEFA Champions’ League and Europa League until 2024. Subscribers can watch BT Sport on their computers as well as their various apps on connected devices. They do offer a Monthly Pass with no contract, which will give customers access to the BT Sport mobile app. Fun Fact: Premier League VPN is one of the most searched phrases on Google.

Remember that BT Sport also features coverage from the Ligue 1 for Messi at PSG, and holds rights to Moto GP, UFC and WWE coverage as well.  After a long delay the BT Sport app is now available on several models of Smart TV as well as Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices.