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Liverpool vs Real Madrid news: Champions League final stat pack

Mohamed Salah Karim Benzema Collage

Planet Sport has all the facts, stats and milestones to look out for in the Champions League final as Liverpool take on Real Madrid in Paris.

Liverpool face Real Madrid in the Champions League final for the second time in four years, but will it be a case of revenge or repeat?
A world-class Gareth Bale goal and two howlers from Loris Karius saw Real Madrid run out 3-1 winners in Kyiv, after Mohamed Salah had been taken out of the game by Sergio Ramos.
These two have combined for 19 European Cup victories down the years, with Real Madrid winning the first five in the 1960s before topping up their total to 13 recent with four wins in five years.
It is indeed European footballing royalty playing in Paris for the biggest prize in football.
And as always there are plenty of numbers to crunch, stats to be read and milestones to look out for in the Champions League final.

Roads to the final

Liverpool won every game in what was billed as a tough group containing AC Milan, Atletico Madrid and Porto, before producing their best display away at Italian champions Inter.

The Reds have basically battered their knockout opponents in the first legs but been made to sweat in the second - beating Inter away 2-0, Benfica away 3-1 and Villarreal at home 2-0.
In the return legs they lost to Inter 1-0 and drew with Benfica 3-3 at Anfield before that remarkable 3-2 win at Villarreal saw them into a third final in five years.

Real Madrid have looked like a team with their name on the trophy in the knockouts. Prior to that they won five of their six group games with that one defeat being a shocker of a 2-1 loss at home to Moldovans Sheriff Tiraspol.

They've been behind the eight ball in all three knockout ties since but managed to somehow save themselves, firstly with a Karim Benzema hat-trick against PSG in the second leg at the Bernabeu.

Chelsea overturned a first leg loss but then missed out in extra time, while Man City were all-but through until Rodrygo's two stoppage-time goals sent the semi-final into extra time.

Benzema finished the job to book their place in the final, where they'll be hoping for a much smoother route to victory.

Liverpool vs Real Madrid head-to-head

This is the ninth time the teams have met in the European Cup/UEFA Champions League - Liverpool won the first three but Real Madrid are unbeaten in the last five (W4 D1), including winning the final in 2018.

If Liverpool win it will be their seventh European Cup and move them level with AC Milan. They would still be some way behind Real Madrid, however, who have a whopping 13 titles to their name.

A 14th European Cup for Real Madrid would therefore mean they have won it twice as many times as any other team.
Real Madrid have won the trophy each of the last seven times they've made the final, with their last defeat coming against Liverpool, in Paris, when Alan Kennedy earned a 1-0 win in the 1981 final.

This is the third time Liverpool and Real Madrid have met in the final of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League, and that's the most between two clubs across the history of the two competitions.

Manager stats

Carlo Ancelotti is looking to win the UEFA Champions League for the fourth time; the most by any manager in the competition's history (after 2002/03 & 2006/07 with AC Milan and 2013/14 with current club Real Madrid).

Ancelotti has lifted the trophy in three of his previous four UEFA Champions League finals, only failing to do so against Liverpool in 2004/05 with AC Milan (lost 3-2 on penalties).

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has faced Real Madrid more times than any other opponent in the UEFA Champions League (9), winning just three of those matches (D2 L4).

Klopp's 33% win percentage against the La Liga giants is the lowest of all the teams he has faced at least three times.

Player stats and landmarks

Toni Kroos, Real Madrid, Champions League

With five players boasting over 100 Champions League games (Karim Benzema, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Marcelo and David Alaba), Real Madrid could become the first team to have four or more centurions in their starting XI for a final.

The current-most is three, which was also by Real Madrid in the 2018 final (Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Sergio Ramos).

Karim Benzema has scored 15 goals for Real Madrid in this year's Champions League, just two behind the all-time record in a single campaign (17, Cristiano Ronaldo in 2013/14).

If he scores in this game, Benzema would also become the outright third top scorer in the history of the competition, as he's tied with Robert Lewandowski on 86 and behind Cristiano Ronaldo (140) and Lionel Messi (125).
At 34 years and 160 days old on the day of the game, Benzema would be second-oldest player to score in a UEFA Champions League final, after Paolo Maldini for AC Milan in 2005 (36y 333d, also against Liverpool).

Real Madrid winger Vinícius Junior has been directly involved in nine goals in this year's Champions League (three goals, six assists) - the last South American player to be directly involved in 10+ in a single campaign in the competition while 21 or under was Lionel Messi in 2008/09 with 14 (nine goals, five assists).

Mohamed Salah has scored 33 goals under Jurgen Klopp in the Champions League; only three players have scored more for one manager - Lionel Messi under Pep Guardiola (43), Ruud van Nistelrooy under Sir Alex Ferguson (35) and Thierry Henry under Arsene Wenger (35).

Since joining Liverpool in the summer 2017, Salah has scored 33 Champions League goals and made 11 assists - with only Lewandowski (55) and Kylian Mbappe (47) directly involved in more goals in that span.
And in fact, Lionel Messi is the only other player to match Salah and score 30+ goals and have 10+ assists in the Champions League since the Egyptian joined Liverpool.

It will be a 50th Champions League appearance for Jordan Henderson, which will see him join Phil Neal (57), Steven Gerrard (73) and Jamie Carragher (80) as the only English players to reach a half-century for Liverpool in the competition.

Aged 23 years and 233 days, Trent Alexander-Arnold will be the second-youngest player to play in three Champions League finals behind only Alessandro Del Piero, who was 23 years and 192 days old in his third final in 1998.

Can comeback kings strike again?

Real Madrid have been behind in all three of their Champions League knockout ties, and have had to score late goals to get through every one of them.

They've scored eight goals inside the last 15 minutes of games, two of those coming in stoppage time and two coming via extra time winners.

In the eight games between Liverpool and Real Madrid though, the team who has scored first has always gone on to win the game.
READ MORE: Liverpool vs Real Madrid combined XI

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