Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has spoken to the media today in a UEFA CL Final press conference.
After spending most of last week away at a warm weather training camp the reds are now back in the fortress of Melwood as they make the last preparations before flying out to Madrid ahead of Saturday night's Champions League final.
And he had plenty of praise for his current crop of Liverpool players.
In the five or six days between Barcelona and Barcelona nobody believed more in this team than the team themselves. That was brilliant and that’s why we are here.
I don’t like to blame my other teams, to be honest. I love them all because they all gave their everything. This team is doing well. I’ve never been part of a final with a better team than this, that’s true.
But in different times for different reasons my teams were good as well. I’m not so surprised because the boys are, how we call it, a mix-up – potential with attitude – in the best way I ever saw or experienced. That’s just brilliant, it’s exceptional and that brought us where we are.
The reds boss was also asked about the challenge of facing Spurs - a team the reds narrowly got past in both league encounters and who did, of course, dump champions Manchester City out of the tournament.
The quality of Tottenham and us is pretty similar. The difference between us in the league was consistency. We won both games against Tottenham but both 2-1. We had brilliant periods in the games where I think we deserved to win, but especially the home game was an absolutely tight game with a lucky goal in pretty much the last minute. So that’s what we expect, there’s no doubt about that.
Poch is right that the emotions will be completely different. You have to use all the things you used during the season but in the specific circumstances. We are all human beings; it’s a special game and after that it’s no game anymore. Bringing ourselves in the right mood is, for us, the job to do, to really play the game we want to play.
We know a lot about Tottenham, of course. But we had three weeks. After these three weeks I would have known the name of the groundsman of Barcelona as well if they had been the opponent. That’s how the football world is.
After an extensive chat with Jurgen Klopp, both Gini Wijnaldum and Joel Matip answered questions from the media
VIDEO: Jurgen Klopp Pre-CL Media Conference