Jordan Henderson is set to make his 57th appearance of the season for Liverpool tonight; this would see him end 2021-22 as the player with the most games played for a club within Europe’s big five leagues across all competitions.

After one of Karim Benzema’s 10 goals during the Champions League knockouts, someone on BT Sport’s commentary team declared we were watching “the best finisher in the world”.

It is hard to argue (though we will). Benzema has had an incredible season, scoring 44 goals in 45 games, including 15 in the Champions League which puts in reach Cristiano Ronaldo’s record of 17 in a single campaign – Benzema scored hat-tricks against PSG and Chelsea, and it is not unimaginable that he might leave Saturday’s final against Liverpool with the match ball under his arm and Ronaldo’s record too.

But finishing is different to goalscoring. The best finisher in the world does not necessarily score the most goals, but makes the very most of the chances they have. If every forward in Europe had exactly the same chances this season, would Benzema have scored the most goals?

We decided to try and find out.

Jurgen Klopp was asked whether he might spring a few surprises on Real Madrid by starting some players who may not have featured in most of the competition this season, to try and throw them off track at kick off.

“I believe when you do the right stuff all the time then it is the right thing to do in the final as well. But, it has to be on the highest level possible,” he replied.

“We obviously played some really, really good stuff this season, we are not here by surprise or we got a ticket or something like that – we deserved it as well.

“So, being us on the highest level would be cool. If we could do that then, as I said, we are a really uncomfortable opponent. A really uncomfortable opponent. That’s what we have to be.”

I think that’s safe to say he’ll be sticking with the core group of players that have brought the Reds this far already.

That Liverpool are a better team than Real Madrid is a fairly uncontroversial point ahead of this year’s Champions League final. The consensus is that they will have the edge in many of the individual match-ups across the pitch at the Stade de France. There is no easy way to stop Jurgen Klopp’s side from playing their game. There is an obvious way to hit them back, though.

And in Paris, they will come up against the opponents who were responsible for their most recent Champions League exit in April of last year. Liverpool were short of any of their first-choice centre-backs then, due to the freak run of injuries that made last season the most difficult that Klopp has experienced in six and a half years at Anfield. Their exit at the quarter-final stage to Madrid was not especially surprising given those wider difficulties.

No player did more to bring about that exit, though, than Vinicius Junior. By repeatedly finding space in behind Trent Alexander-Arnold down Liverpool’s right, he scored twice in Madrid’s 3-1 first leg win and had chances to settle the tie once and for all in the goalless draw at Anfield. It is easy to read too much into those games. That was a different Liverpool. Yet it was also a different Vinicius.

Tonight will be the fourth Champions League final between two managers who have already previously won the competition, after 2007 (Ancelotti vs Benítez), 2010 (Mourinho vs Van Gaal) and 2011 (Guardiola vs Ferguson).

Who will triumph between Ancelotti vs Klopp in 2022?

Liverpool are tipped to win the Champions League final and Betfair’s historical odds reveal 8 out of last 10 pre-match favourites have gone on to lift trophy.

Liverpool are the Evens favourites to beat Real Madrid in the Champions League final with the Spanish side 13/5 to win in 90 minutes the same odds as the final ending in a draw.

Only Chelsea, both in 2012 and 2021, have prevailed against the odds to win the Champions League

Elsewhere Liverpool are 8/15 to lift the trophy and Real Madrid are 11/8 to add to their impressive Champions League collection.

Although the Liverpool players attempted to treat this like any of the many big games they’ve played, it took a mere step on the Stade de France pitch to change that. This is the club’s third Champions League final in five years, but there’s still that extra electrical charge to the air.

“It’s the occasion, it’s talking in a press conference here,” Trent Alexander-Arnold said. “There’s different things you do around the game. It’s the special game, the one that everyone wants to play in.

“It’s the game of the season.”

The hope is that it will also be the game of the season in terms of spectacle. That is one thing the Champions League has not really served up amid all its drama, and you arguably have to go back to 2005 for the last truly great showpiece, but there are little elements coming together that could set up a classic.

Jurgen Klopp was asked whether Mo Salah was too intense in his focus for tonight’s game after being injured in the 2018 Champions League final between these sides - a match that Liverpool went on to lose.

“Nobody has to worry about Mo and that he takes it too much. It’s completely normal.” replied Klopp. “For him it was a very special situation [in 2018]. We all lost that day but he got injured early in the game; he is now in a very good shape, he was then in a very good shape so it feels for him different.

“You ask him, that’s a normal feeling. We all get motivated by different things. I have here 26, 27 players and they all get motivated by different things. That’s completely fine and I have no problem with that.

“The only thing is if that’s the only motivation, but that’s not the case in Mo’s case that it’s the only motivation he has. But it’s normal that he wants to put things right. We want to put things right.

“We didn’t forget what happened that time, it’s just a while ago and we cannot come here and tomorrow I show the movie of that game and it’s enough motivation for the game, that makes no sense.

“We have so many reasons that we give our absolute everything tomorrow night and this might be one reason but not the reason.”

Real Madrid’s captain says he gets nervous the night before playing important games such as the Champions League final but explains how the professionalism of the Madrid squad focuses the mind in time for kick off. He said:

When Mohamed Salah insisted he wanted Real Madrid in the Champions League final, it wasn’t just about revenge, or even himself. It reflected the view of a fair few people within Liverpool, but also the top levels of European football.

A grand showdown with Manchester City would have represented the zenith of modern football, bringing an era of rivalry to a peak, but it also would have peaked in terms of emotional intensity and Premier League domination. Jurgen Klopp’s players would have been ready, of course, but a third all-English final in four years would likely have been subject to the sort of stifling tension most one-country finals generally suffer from.

It similarly would have left the rest of Europe again feeling shut out.

There is little of that with Madrid. There isn’t quite the same sense of suffocation, since it feels someway different to be facing a big European club.