Former Manchester United, Chelsea and Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho got into the mood of watching tonight’s UEFA Champions League final wishing to see Cristiano Ronaldo’s club and Lionel Messi’s clash in this kind of stage soon before retiring from the beautiful sport.
Two English sides, Tottenham and Liverpool, will set the Estadio Wanda Metropolitan Madrid agog tonight as they fight for the ultimate prize, but Mourinho’s fantasy is well beyond it.
Ronaldo and Messi are fast approaching the twilight of their careers, but Mourinho hopes their respective clubs can reach the Champions League final for a mouth-watering clash between the two football legends to happen on such a massive occasion.
Ronaldo’s Juventus and Messi’s Barcelona were hot favourites to reach the 2018/19 Champions League final, but both lost, disgracefully, to Ajax and Liverpool respectively in the semi-finals.
Ronaldo, 34, and Messi nearing his 32nd birthday, have not gone head-to-head in UEFA Champions League final despite having won the title a number of times.
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“First of all, I think it’s a frustration for all those who like football to never have had a final (Champions League) between the two,” Eleven Sports quotes Mourinho as saying.
“It was almost real many times, but it never happened. I always thought that it would be a big injustice to them, in the sense that everything would be centered on them and that one would come out holding on to the big ears cup and the other would come out with head down.”
Mourinho added: “I always thought it would be a great injustice to have a duel between the titans of the two best players in the world in the last decade, for one of them to bow to the weight of defeat. That’s why it’s probably a good thing it never happened.
“Can it still happen? It could still happen. They’re both in clubs that want to win. They don’t hide that they want to win themselves. Of course, it can happen.”
