The UEFA Super Cup takes place tomorrow night, and Sergio Ramos' appearance at the pre-game press conference in Tallinn gave cause for the fallout to the Champions League final to continue.
It took a couple of months, but Jurgen Klopp has finally snapped at Ramos last month following the defender's tangle with Mo Salah and sly elbow on Loris Karius, the latter inflicting a concussion and coming minutes prior to Karius' bewildering error for Madrid's opening goal.
Ramos was in typically unapologetic mood after the game:
Bloody hell, they've given this a lot of attention, the Salah thing ... I didn't want to speak because everything is magnified. I see the play well, he grabs my arm first and I fell to the other side, the injury happened to the other arm and they said that I gave him a judo hold. After the goalkeeper said that I dazed him with a clash with me I am only missing Firmino saying that he got a cold because a drop of my sweat.
Klopp, having kept shtum on Ramos for weeks, finally snapped when asked about him ahead of a pre-season friendly with Manchester United in Michigan.
If you watch it back and you are not with Real Madrid – then you think it is ruthless and brutal.
I’m not sure it is an experience we will have again – go there and put an elbow to the goalkeeper, put their goalscorer down like a wrestler in midfield and then you win the game.
That was the story of the game. Ramos said a lot of things afterwards that I didn’t like. As a person I didn’t like the reactions of him. He was like: ‘Whatever, what do they want? It’s normal.’ No, it is not normal. If you put all of the situations of Ramos together then you will see a lot of situations with Ramos. The year before against Juve he was responsible for the red card for [Juan] Cuadrado.
Nobody talks about that afterwards. It is like we, the world out there, accepts that you use each weapon to win the game. People probably expect that I am the same. I am not.
Klopp returned to the issue last week, saying that he would rather be a "bad loser" than win like Ramos.
In today's presser, Ramos was unwilling to end the feud, instead drawing attention to Klopp's record in finals and the fact he reckons that the Liverpool manager is not as acquainted with success as he is. Ramos also chucked in the fact that he voted for Klopp as coach of the year, just to "keep him quiet".
He wants to justify himself for losing the Champions League final. It's not the first time he's lost that game. To keep him quiet, he's one of the coaches I voted for as the Best of the Year.
Perhaps Klopp will respond, although it is more likely he will brush this off and all will settle...until the teams meet again.
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