Liverpool v Real Madrid – Champions League last 16, first leg

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3 min Vinicius’s cross towards Benzema is comfortably claimed by Alisson. It’s been a really fast start.

2 min Gakpo robs Camavinga 25 yards from goal. Henderson feeds the loose ball back towards Gakpo, who glides into the area… and then slips over. That was a great chance. Rudiger was coming across, but that meant Gakpo would have been able to play a simple square pass to the unmarked Salah had he stayed on his feet.

1 min No tactical surprises on either side: it’s 4-3-3 v 4-3-3.

1 min Peep peep! Luka Modric, 37, gets the tie of the round under way.

“Followed the chart link with giddy excitement, thinking back to those halcyon days as a 17 year old, grooving to Dirty Cash,” says John Potter. “Disappointed is an understatement on finding the song was I Love You (The Postman Song)! Not one I remember. Damn you Stevie V.”

It’s the kind of mistake David Brent would have made in the (not real) quiz. Dirty Cash, a song I remember with equal fondness, was spring/summer 1990. In fact, this is a belter of a top 20. Solitary, brother.

A reminder of the teams, who are about to walk into a belting Anfield atmosphere

Liverpool (4-3-3) Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson, Fabinho, Bajcetic; Salah, Gakpo, Nunez.Substitutes: Adrian, Kelleher, Milner, Keita, Firmino, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jones, Elliott, Jota, Tsimikas, Carvalho, Matip.

Real Madrid (4-3-3) Courtois; Carvajal, Eder Militao, Rudiger, Alaba; Valverde, Camavinga, Modric; Rodrygo, Benzema, Vinicius Jr.Substitutes: Lunin, Vallejo, Nacho, Hazard, Kroos, Asensio, Odriozola, Lucas Vasquez, Dani Ceballos, Mario Martin, Arribas, Alvaro.

Referee Istvan Kovacs (Romania)

Updated at 14.57 EST

“The remarkable Will Still (subject of a nice Guardian piece a few weeks ago) is a studio analyst on Belgian TV tonight,” says Edward Ricketts. “Beggars belief that he is just 30!”

Doesn’t it just. It’s such a brilliant story, and he seems admirably down to earth.

“Great interview by the good Doctor Sid with Camavinga,” says Ruth Purdue. “I hope he plays as excellently as he did in the World Cup final. He is technically superb. I just hope he doesn’t get booked in this one. It could be feisty and he tends to always get booked.”

It was overshadowed by the chaos and the phallic goalkeeping, but I thought he was absurdly good when he came on in the final. Strolled on at left-back, not even his best position, and didn’t put a foot wrong.

Updated at 14.52 EST

“Benzema is the best forward in the world, that is Real’s secret,” says Jeff Sax. “And his absence at the World Cup is why France lost.”

As if the final wasn’t exciting enough, imagine if he had played.

Jurgen Klopp speaks

The mood is very good – we’re excited about the opportunity… That’s how you should feel before a Champions League game… The results and the some of the things we saw [in the last two games] gave us the feeling [we are playing better].

What would be the best-case scenario? We smash them 8-0 or something. That’s pretty unlikely. This game is 180 minutes, and the more you can get from the first half, the better it is, and if you get nothing from the first half then you have to turn it round in the second half.

I don’t see it as a test [for Stefan Bajcetic]], I see it as an opportunity for him as well. I didn’t even speak to him about it. Everything looks natural and I don’t think it makes sense to start having one-to-one talks with him before a Real Madrid game.

If I was a player I’d be nervous after that, because I would think ‘the boss thinks I’m not ready for it’. I think he’s ready for it, which is why he starts, and if he’s not it’s my fault so he cannot lose. There was no reason to change, but I am also really happy with the options we have on the bench because they will be important.

“Hi Rob,” says Peter Oh. “It’s too soon to call Stefan Bajcetic Stevie B, isn’t it?”

It is if you remember the UK top 40 in March 1991.

“Last year’s CL was so strange: Real Madrid won the whole thing while playing about 10 minutes of football a game, while Liverpool lost it by switching off for 10 seconds in the final, having played every minute of football possible in a season,” asys Justin Kavanagh. “So is ‘Ancelotti time’ a new concept in football, like ‘Fergie time’, except that, like in a horror movie, you just don’t know when it’s going to happen?”

Let’s at least call it ‘Carlo time’ so we can sing it like MC Hammer. You have to be careful with recency bias – this is the best aside I have written in my entire career – but I’m struggling to think of a European Cup-winning campaign with as rich a combination of drama and escapology. It’s almost enough to make you believe in fate.

Liverpool v Real Madrid: the modern age

Players who will miss the second leg if they are booked tonight

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Liverpool team news: Nunez starts

Darwin Nunez is fit to play, which is a big boost for Liverpool, and one that allows Jurgen Klopp to name an unchanged side for the first in a while. The teenager Stefan Bajcetic, one of the catalysts of Liverpool’s mini revival, makes his full Champions League debut.

Liverpool (4-3-3) Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson, Fabinho, Bajcetic; Salah, Gakpo, Nunez.Substitutes: Adrian, Kelleher, Milner, Keita, Firmino, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jones, Elliott, Jota, Tsimikas, Carvalho, Matip.

Updated at 13.55 EST

Few football writers in the world, if any, produce as many good interviews as Sid Lowe. This sitdown with the extraordinary Eduardo Camavinga is another cracker.

Real Madrid team news

Madrid have announced their team a bit early. Carlo Ancelotti makes two changes from Real’s win at Osasuna at the weekend. Karim Benzema is back after being rested in Pamplona, which means Fede Valverde moves into midfield and Dani Ceballos is left out. Another Dani C, Carvajal to be precise, replaces Nacho at right-back.

The bench includes Toni Kroos, who was supposed to be absent through illness but was added to the squad this afternoon.

Real Madrid (4-3-3) Courtois; Carvajal, Eder Militao, Rudiger, Alaba; Valverde, Camavinga, Modric; Rodrygo, Benzema, Vinicius Jr.Substitutes: Lunin, Vallejo, Nacho, Hazard, Kroos, Asensio, Odriozola, Lucas Vasquez, Dani Ceballos, Mario Martin, Arribas, Alvaro.

Updated at 13.31 EST

Preamble

Here’s one we wrote earlier, for today’s Football Daily email.

—–

You can sum up Jürgen Klopp’s Big Cup story at Liverpool in one word. It’s not “heavy”, or “metal”; it’s not even “heavy-metal” when it’s used as an adjective. It’s “Madrid”. Liverpool beat Spurs at the Estadio Metropolitano, aka the House of Simeone, in 2019 to win their sixth title. In the other four seasons, from 2018-22, they were eliminated by Madrid’s finest: Real three times, including two finals, and Atlético in a just-before-Covid night that gets weirder with every recall. So it was no great surprise when Liverpool, who had a one-in-four chance of drawing Real Madrid in the last 16, drew Real Madrid in the last 16.

The bad news for Liverpool is that Madrid have been – please tell us there’s an award for naffest portmanteau – their Klopptonite in this competition. Also, having signed Eduardo Camavinga, Aurélien Tchouaméni and probably Jude Bellingham, Real are the reason Liverpool’s heavy-metal midfield has been frozen in time. The good news for Liverpool is that you’re only as good as your next Madrid tie. Truth is, with a fair wind and a goalkeeper swap or two, Liverpool could have won the 2018 and 2022 finals, so the teams are closer than a post-Dossena scoreline of Real 11-2 Liverpool might suggest.

“I didn’t watch [the 2022 final] back until this weekend and the thing I realised immediately was … why I hadn’t,” sighed Klopp, symbolically frisbeeing the match DVD out of the nearest open window. “It was proper torture because we played a good game and could have won – and that’s the decisive word because we could but didn’t, because they scored and we didn’t. We saw how experienced Madrid is and how little they are fussed by the fact the other team has chances … What held us back a little was the fact it was a final and we did not take enough risks in little moments. We were not adventurous enough.”

One man who will never lack adventure is the sometimes harrowingly intrepid Darwin Núñez, and Liverpool are hopeful he will recover from shoulder-knack to play some part at Anfield on Tuesday night. “So,” continued Klopp, “somebody told me – and I don’t even know if it was true – that Carlo [Ancelotti] said after the final, that [with] Liverpool it’s cool because they knew exactly what they will face.” Not anymore. Núñez – and Football Daily says this with love, having defended him since day one and misses three and four – is about as predictable as the afterlife. But even in a season when he has been incessantly ridiculed, Núñez has 11 goals and four assists in 28 games – 10 of which were substitute appearances.

Núñez’s presence – not to mention the absence of Tchouaméni, Toni Kroos and indeed Casemiro in the Madrid midfield – is among the reasons Liverpool hope that this time, more than any other, they’ll find a way to beat a team from Madrid. But Real have one or two or 14 reasons for optimism themselves. And if they put Klopp out of Big Cup again, they might even get to keep him.

Updated at 13.32 EST