Real Madrid vs Liverpool Live Football Match Score 21/2/2023

Real Madrid vs Liverpool Live Football Match Score 21/2/2023

Liverpool host the first leg of their Champions League round-of-16 tie against Real Madrid on Tuesday; Jurgen Klopp’s side beat Newcastle on Saturday to earn back-to-back wins and open up the top-four race; the Reds boss reckons his side’s form might have turned at the right momentThe Reds have recovered from their 3-0 defeat at Wolves in early February by claiming important wins over Everton and top-four rivals Newcastle to get their season back on track ahead of Tuesday’s huge first leg at Anfield.Klopp reckons his side’s form might have turned at just the right moment to take on Real Madrid, the 14-time Champions League winners.With the recent history and quite successful in the competition, difficult to play against, grinding results out, it will be a top football game,” said Klopp.

“I’m really happy we can play now, four weeks ago it would have been different, but life is all about timing. Maybe we’ve found our feet right in time for this game even though I would have expected us to be ourselves if we hadn’t won the last two games because it’s a different competition and you have to use this opportunity.We have these two results and hopefully we can build on that but we need to play a super game, we need to play two super games, to be honest, to get through. I have no problem with that because if you don’t play your best you don’t have a chance – Real Madrid don’t have to play their best and still have a chance! That’s the difference. That’s pretty special.

I can’t wait.”Tuesday night will see a meeting between two of Europe’s most illustrious clubs, as Liverpool host Real Madrid at Anfield in the UEFA Champions League last 16. Liverpool will be hoping to avenge their UCL final defeat to Los Blancos last May, but this will be a stiff test against the LaLiga giants. The Reds haven’t won any of their last six meetings with Real Madrid, drawing one and losing five of these games – this is their longest ever run of winless games against a single opponent in the history of the European Cup/Champions League. This is a big shift from the early European meetings between these two clubs, with Liverpool winning each of their first three matches versus Real Madrid between 1981 and 2009.

Real will be making their fourth trip to Anfield to face Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League. They lost the first game there in March 2009, suffering a humiliating 4-0 defeat, but haven’t conceded a goal in their last two visits, winning 3-0 in October 2014 and drawing 0-0 most recently in April 2021. However, the Spanish club haven’t had the best run of form away in England in the competition in recent times, winning just one of their last seven away games at English clubs in the UCL (D2 L4).This match will be a repeat of the 2021-22 UCL final, where Real Madrid picked up their 14th European Cup/Champions League title in Paris versus Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

This was Klopp’s third UCL final loss – the most of any manager, while only Juventus (five) have lost more Champions League finals than Liverpool (three). Conversely, Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti is the first manager in European Cup/Champions League history to win the trophy on four separate occasions. The Italian has won four of his five UEFA Champions League finals, failing only against Liverpool in 2005.

At 21 years and 320 days, Vinícius Júnior became the second youngest player to score in the final of the competition for Real Madrid, after Marco Asensio in 2017 (21y 133d), but the main reason for their victory was goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. The Belgian made nine saves against Liverpool in this game, the most on record by a goalkeeper in a single UEFA Champions League final (since 2003-04). Overall, Liverpool attempted 24 shots in this final – 20 more than Real Madrid. This is the highest tally on record (since 2003-04) for a side not to score in a UCL final, while Mohamed Salah attempted six of these shots – the most on record by a single player in a Champions League final.

This defeat stopped Liverpool from winning a cup treble in 2021-22, having already secured the English League Cup and FA Cup double. Strangely, despite this, the Reds failed to score in any of their three finals last season – winning the two domestic trophies via penalty shootouts. This meant that they didn’t score a single goal in five-and-a-half hours of football in major finals in 2021-22.After an awful start to 2023, Liverpool will hope their last two results mean that they have turned the corner. Back-to-back 2-0 victories against rivals Everton and Newcastle United ended a sequence of just one win in seven competitive games, which included poor Premier League defeats to Brentford, Brighton and Wolves, plus an FA Cup elimination away in Brighton at the fourth-round stage.

January signing Cody Gakpo has scored in both of Liverpool’s recent wins following his move from PSV, while Darwin Núñez scored for just the second time in 10 post-World Cup appearances in the 2-0 victory at Newcastle on Saturday evening. Real Madrid have had a ridiculously busy 2023, with the Spanish club having already played 14 matches this year – six more than opponents Liverpool. Ancelotti’s side have had to make long trips to Saudi Arabia to play in the Spanish Super Cup (which they lost in the final to rivals Barcelona) and Morocco to play – and win – the FIFA Club World Cup.

Real are currently on a four-game winning streak following a LaLiga defeat at Mallorca (1-0) on 5 February. Their winning run began with semi-final and final wins in the FIFA CWC against Al Ahly and Al Hilal respectively, before back-to-back LaLiga victories versus Elche and Osasuna without conceding a goal. Uruguayan midfielder Federico Valverde has scored four goals across these four games, while Marco Asensio has netted in both LaLiga matches in this run. Real Madrid’s form in the UCL this season was enough to see them top Group F on the way to making it to the round of 16. Their four wins from six games (D1 L1) placed them above RB Leipzig, Shakhtar Donetsk and Celtic with 13 points, with their only group stage defeat coming on MD5 away in Leipzig (3-2).

After losing their opening match of the 2022-23 UEFA Champions League campaign (4-1 vs Napoli), Liverpool have won each of their last five European matches. Only once previously have they had a longer winning run under Jürgen Klopp in the competition, winning seven in a row between September 2021 and February 2022.

Despite finishing level on points with Serie A leaders Napoli in Group A (15 each), Liverpool ended in second place due to inferior head-to-head goal difference. They still qualified ahead of Ajax and Rangers to set up this last 16 match with Real Madrid, however. The total goals scored by Liverpool in the 2022-23 competition (17) is below that of only Benfica (18) Bayern Munich (19) and Napoli (20).