Mohamed Salah: Liverpool out for Real Madrid revenge in Champions League final

Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah has spoken about his desire for revenge in their upcoming Champions League final with Real Madrid.

The Reds will meet Madrid in European club football’s showpiece event later this month – a repeat of the 2018 final, which Madrid won and in which Salah was forced to leave the pitch injured.

Speaking on Thursday night after becoming only the ninth player to pick up two Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year awards, Salah said: “I’m so excited, I’m sure the team as well is so excited about it. I said before the game that I wanted to play Madrid in the final.

“I’m sure it is going to be a tough game, they beat a lot of good teams so we just need to focus on the game. First of all we still have a few games in the Premier League and we have to finish them in the best way possible and then we’ll see.”

Asked whether this was a revenge mission for Liverpool, the 29-year-old added: “Yeah. Yeah, we lost in the [2018] final, it was a sad day for all of us. It’s revenge time.”

However, with Liverpool still fighting on three fronts, Salah stressed: “We have to focus on the Premier League first. We have four games left and so do Manchester City, which they can drop points in. We just need to focus on the Spurs game and then go from there.”

On whether Liverpool can record a historic quadruple this season Salah was realistic, saying: “I think so. Not everything is in our hands – we have to win our games in the Premier League and see if City drop points or not.

“They have a great team, great manager, I’m sure they want to keep winning and finish the season with the Premier League. But we just have to focus on our game, we can win three trophies that are in our hands – the cup game and Champions League. The other one, we have to wait for City to drop points, but I think it’s possible.”

Last week, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp signed a contract extension to keep him at Anfield until 2026 and Salah is looking forward to continuing to work with the German.

“It’s great to work with him. He’s improved the team in a lot of different ways. Hopefully there’s a long way to go,” Salah said.

Salah and his teammates have already been on a long journey together and the Egyptian international gave an insight into the mindset of the team when he said: “Most of us have been together for five years now. We know what it takes to win. We just need to focus and give 100%. We were 2-0 down in the last game (against Villarreal) and we came back – that’s really important for our mindset. We have the mindset that we can win any trophy.”

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