John Barnes has suggested that neither Tottenham or Liverpool should be considered favourites to win the Champions League final.
Both sides secured their places in the Champions League final in dramatic fashion, with Tottenham staging a second-half comeback in the second leg of their tie with Ajax thanks to a hat-trick from Lucas Moura, and Liverpool beating Barcelona 4-0 in the second leg of their tie at Anfield to recover a 3-0 first leg defeat in Spain.
Liverpool lost last season’s Champions League final 3-1 to Real Madrid, but for Tottenham this will be the first time they will compete in the final of the competition when they take to field at Atletico Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano Stadium.
Barnes, a former Liverpool and England player, when asked to rate the Red’s chances in the final in Madrid, revealed that he believes both teams have an equal chance of lifting the trophy.
The former Reds shared that he thought Spurs were a strong and physical side, so he didn’t want to write off their chances.
“They are two good teams who are equally as capable. We beat them twice this season but the 2-1 victory at home we were very fortunate to beat them. Tottenham know about us and they are strong and physical,” Barnes told the Sport Review.
“I don’t necessarily make anybody favourites. Anything can happen and I hope we can do it.”
OPINION
Barnes is probably right in his assessment that Tottenham and Liverpool are very evenly matched heading into their Champions League final clash in Madrid. However, for some Liverpool will probably be slight favourites, given that they beat Spurs twice in the Premier League this season, and finished two places higher and 26 points better off than Mauricio Pochettino’s side. Having said that finals are unlike most normal matches between two sides during the season, with the old belief that form goes out of the window on occasions such as Champions League finals. The fact that both sides compete against each other domestically, as Barnes acknowledges, makes the game even more interesting, as both managers know each other game plans and both sets of players know what to expect from each other. That would potentially mean we should expect a cagey final, and given both sides have such quality in the final third there will probably be at least one crucial moment of quality that could decide the game. In the end it will probably come down to which side can handle the occasion better.