Liverpool beat Tottenham in Champions League final resembling League One

WANDA METROPOLITANO, MADRID — Obviously, football can’t all be second-half hat-tricks and stoppage time winners, four-nils against Barcelona to overturn three-goal deficits, late penalties in Paris. But European club football’s showpiece event should at least be given a chance to replicate the chaos and goals which defined the earlier knockout rounds.

Instead, the Champions League final was flattened by a three-week break between the end of the Premier League season and delivered a match which took at least 50 minutes for the players to warm up.

It was a shame, because the build-up really had been Champions League — the 100,000 English supporters in red and white temporarily moving in to Madrid’s plazas and having what appeared to be a relatively well-behaved party. The game itself was kind of League One.

Nerves and pressure

The Premier League season was concluded a week early due to England’s involvement in next week’s Nations League finals, as is commonplace at such times. But three weeks is a long time to keep the players fit and focussed and it felt like a World Cup group stage game: admittedly there would have been nerves and pressure but there was a rustiness to the touches and play.

The heat, still a suffocating 28 degrees without a hint of wind, was undoubtedly a factor. Merely sitting in the stadium you could not avoid sweat pooling in your joints. But good games play out in hot conditions, especially if players are fully fit.

There was even a slackness to the penalty awarded after 23 seconds: a lazy scoop by Sadio Mane and a split-second lack of concentration from Moussa Sissoko to leave his arms out wide.

Flat atmosphere

The atmosphere that bubbled invitingly within the stands filled around half-an-hour before kick-off was killed by the eight-minute Imagine Dragons performance just before the game started, but then died again after Mohamed Salah scored the early penalty.

The atmosphere at Anfield on European nights is sensational — rivalling the world’s best — and Tottenham’s new stadium has been arguably as good in their Champions League games there since it opened.

There was barely any of that, at least not until Divick Origi secured the win for Liverpool with his 87th minute strike from the bench and the red half of the Metropolitano Stadium knew the trophy was theirs.

But the rest of the match needed a final to lift it. The half-time statistics were dire: Liverpool completed 69 per cent of their passes, neither side had what was deemed a “clear-cut” chance and between them they had failed with 15 out of 15 crosses.

‘Keep going!’

The Spurs Twitter account’s highlights included “we’ve responded positively to the early setback” and “we’re continuing to probe” and “keep going!”. The Liverpool feed, after naturally exploding at the early penalty, resorted to posting the pre-match team photo.

The extended break gave Harry Kane the chance to recover from an ankle injury, but he had only 11 touches in the first half.

The game did come alive, sort of, around the 50th minute, the kraken finally awakened. Spurs strung a few passes together, a decent Dele Alli chance was blocked. Their fans managed to chant in unison. They erupted when semi-final hero Lucas Moura came on in the 66th minute; even louder when they thought a ball fired across the penalty area hit a Liverpool hand.

Even then, Alli’s attempted lob in the 73rd minute, which dropped tamely into Alisson’s arms, was Tottenham’s first shot on target of the match.

And then the kraken dozed off again — momentarily opening her eyes as Alisson made a double save from Son Heung-min and Moura. She was sound asleep and not even watching as Origi finished the game off with three minutes remaining.

Even in this heat, Liverpool had won the European Cup final without breaking a sweat.