Liverpool take on CF Monterrey today for a shot at another FIFA Club World Cup final
Despite being the undisputed tournament’s favorite, Liverpool, who are making their second appearance at the FIFA Club World Cup, are not leaving anything to chances as they take on CONCACAF champions CF Monterrey in the second semi-final in Doha scheduled for 8:30 pm today at the Khalifa International Stadium.
Having finished as runners up in their debut at the 2005 tournament held in Japan after losing 0-1 to Brazil’s São Paulo, the Premier League runaway leaders are determined to go the whole hog this time around, and that explains the reason for the Jurgen Klopp’s side arriving Doha with the full senior side despite having a quarter-final clash with Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday.
“We are here to play football and not to show off and that's why we are not having any public event on the sidelines of this tournament. This tournament is important to us and we are here to win and that's what we are aiming at," said Klopp at a well-attended presser on Tuesday.
The team, who flew in on Sunday, boast of some of the world’s best players including 2019 Ballon d’Or runner-up Virgil van Dijk, who is currently regarded as the best center-back in the world, “the Egyptian King” Mohamed Salah and African Player of the Year contender Sadio Mane among others.
Klopp noted that the European champions are determined to claim their third trophy of the calendar year.
“We don’t fly 3,000 miles not to show up. It is the biggest club competition in the world. We represent Liverpool and Europe. We will give our best as always and hopefully you can see that. We are ready to work hard tomorrow night, we will make sure we find a line-up to work hard. We respect the opponent a lot,” the 2019 FIFA Coach of the Year added.
Addressing concerns regarding Dijk, who missed Liverpool’s training on Monday, the former Borussia Dortmund coach said the player has no injury concern.
“Virgil is fine. We had to do different stuff for recovery for different people, so that was the reason why he was not involved yesterday in the session.”
Dismissing the tag of the “best team in the world’, Klopp said, “I am not sure about [that], we were the “best football team in the world” in the summer, the last game or whatever – it is only important what we will be tomorrow night.” ‘
He noted that their Mexican opponents, who defeated Al Sadd 3-2 to book the semi-final clash against the Reds, are a tough side and are in a pretty good moment.
“They have a specific way of playing, good players, technically good players. I don’t want to talk too much about tactical stuff because that’s the thing we try either way to do or to avoid,” said Klopp.
Regarding the pitches, Klopp, who had expressed some concerns about the pitches before departing England due to the rainy condition currently being experienced in Doha, said, “We spoke to our grounds man yesterday who was here and he said it is in a really, really good condition. The training ground yesterday was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.”
“Obviously the pitches are brilliant and should not be a proper concern. When we arrived on Sunday night it was raining hard, which would be difficult for each pitch, but our grounds man said it is unbelievable, built on sand, which is good in this case, so it will suck all the water off. The pitch will hopefully be no concern,” said Klopp who also applauded the standard of Qatar’s sports facilities.
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Meanwhile, Monterrey’s coach Antonio Mohamed has promised to pull a surprise by stunning the European champions in their clash tonight.
“We have a big ambition to play against Liverpool and we came to compete strongly at this mega-tournament,” Mohamed said.
“Jurgen Klopp is one of the best managers and Liverpool is maybe the best team in the world right now. We have made a huge effort to reach this stage and have come to compete irrespective of which team or manager we are facing. We came here to play and win the match with our weapons. We didn’t come to participate in this tournament and let Liverpool win against us. Nothing is impossible in football,” the former Argentina international added.
With CONMEBOL champions Flamengo of Brazil already in the final after staging a 3-1 comeback victory against Asian champions Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia in their semi-final clash played last night, the stage is potentially set for the Merseyside club to again face another Brazilian team in the final of the most important club competition in the world.
But before then, the English-side have a hurdle to cross in the form of Los Rayados tonight - a hurdle they must cross and definitely cross well if their dream of displaying the trophy among the silverware at the Anfield cabinet must come to pass.
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