Jurgen Klopp still hasn’t forgiven Sergio Ramos for his challenge in the 2018 Champions League final that forced Mo Salah to come off through injury.
It’s 2018 and Liverpool are in their first Champions League final for 11 years.
The Reds are playing blistering attacking football and central to that is Salah, who has scored 44 goals in his maiden Liverpool campaign. He is inevitable.
Hopes are high going into the final and Klopp’s side start well, but the mood changes after 26 minutes when Salah goes down holding his shoulder having been dragged to the floor by Ramos.
Despite trying his best to continue, five minutes later the No. 11 cries as he leaves the pitch for good, Adam Lallana coming on as his replacement.
Liverpool went on to lose that match 3-1, largely due to Loris Karius‘ infamous second-half calamities.
While the demons of 2018 were put to rest to some extent as Liverpool won the European Cup a year later – Salah scoring a penalty as the Reds won 2-0 against Tottenham in Madrid – Klopp seemingly still hasn’t forgiven Ramos.
Jurgen Klopp hasn’t forgotten “brutal” Sergio Ramos action
Having won everything with Liverpool since the incident, it would be easy for Klopp to forget Ramos’ challenge in Kyiv.
However, it is still clearly an event that riles the former manager. On Toni Kroos’ German Einfach mal Lupen podcast, Klopp questioned, “Is Mr Sergio Ramos really a good guy?”
The 47-year-old went on: “He’s not my favourite player. The action was brutal. Of course, he can’t know that it’s bothering his shoulder, but we all know that he accepted it very happily.
“I could never understand that mentality, I never had players like that and, when I did, I made sure they left.”
Kroos, who played with Ramos 223 times at Madrid, responded to Klopp by saying the Spanish defender was a “very good teammate.”
Klopp acknowledged Kroos’ take before adding: “He may not be my favourite player, but it doesn’t matter.
“I always thought that my centre-backs were good enough not to be involved in actions like that.”
Salah never faced Ramos again in his career but has played Madrid five times since, scoring two goals in five games but never coming out on the winning side.
He can try to put that right on November 27 as Liverpool host Los Blancos in the Champions League league phase at Anfield.
