There isn’t a whole lot that Lamine Yamal and Edwin van der Sar have in common.
The ex-Manchester United goalkeeper is almost 37 years older than the current Barcelona star and was already 17 years into his senior career by the time the Spain international was born, but the duo seem to be aligned when it comes to one matter regarding Liverpool.
The 54-year-old recently (and grudgingly) admitted to whoscored.com that the Reds are his favourites to win the Champions League this season, a sentiment which appears to be shared by Camp Nou’s standout teenage sensation.
Yamal declares Liverpool favourites for the Champions League
In an interview with Mundo Deportivo, Yamal was asked if he thinks Barcelona – who finished second to Liverpool in the new-look league phase of Europe’s premier club competition – can complete a clean sweep of trophies this season.
The 17-year-old replied: “It depends on us. There is only one team in the Champions League that is more favoured than us, and that is Liverpool, because they finished first.”
Liverpool look capable of going far in the Champions League
We can understand Yamal’s logic in pointing to the league phase standings as a guide for assessing a team’s likelihood of winning the tournament overall, but Liverpool fans know better than perhaps anyone else the unpredictability of this particular competition.
When the Reds triumphed in 2005 and 2019, they barely even made it out of the group stage in those respective seasons and finished a lowly fifth domestically in the former campaign.
Arne Slot’s side are set to face either Paris Saint-Germain or Benfica in the round of 16, with the Ligue 1 leaders holding a 3-0 lead from the first leg of their play-off tie against Brest and the Lisbon outfit booking their passage to the next phase at Monaco’s expense last night.
Liverpool would fancy their chances of overcoming either of those if we play to our best, thus booking a quarter-final against one of Aston Villa, Lille, Club Brugge or (barring a major collapse tonight) Borussia Dortmund.
Opportunity certainly seems to knock for the Reds to go deep into the Champions League knockout phase, and nobody will want to come up against them throughout the spring.
There are several hurdles to overcome before we can start dreaming about glory in Munich on 31 May, but Yamal’s comments reflect the huge esteem in which LFC are currently held by some of the best players in Europe.
