Champions League

The Champions League final kicks off on Saturday, May 26 at 2:45 p.m. ET on FOX, and you’re a right foul git if you don’t enjoy the experience with some friends. To enliven the experience, here are some Champions League final bets that you can place amongst amigos.

It figures to be one of the most attack-minded finals of the last decade with both Zinedine Zidane and Jurgen Klopp promising to approach the match with the same principles that got them there (score a bunch, concede slightly less), so there’s a lot to be excited about in Kiev. 

Since its introduction in 1992 as a replacement for the European Cup, the UEFA Champions League has served as the world’s premier club tournament. The prestigious competition is where legends are born, and those legends don’t get any bigger than the players with the most career goals in Champions League history.

On Saturday, May 26, at 2:45 p.m. ET, Real Madrid and Liverpool will contest the 2017-18 UEFA Champions League Final in Kiev, Ukraine. Here’s everything you need to know about how to watch the 2018 Champions League Final between two of Europe’s most dominate clubs.

Although Barcelona has already celebrated its La Liga title, the stakes are as high as ever ahead of this spring's edition of El Clasico. Real Madrid will almost certainly finish the season in second or third, but they'll be plenty motivated to keep Barcelona from joining the ranks of invincible soccer teams. 

In the aftermath of Real Madrid’s extremely fortunate 4-3 aggregate victory over Bayern Munich and Liverpool’s bonkers 7-6 win over Roma, expect two storylines to dominate the headlines in the buildup to Kiev: (1) this is a very different Real Madrid side than previous incarnations (let's be clear here: they’re charmed, not favored — they haven’t gotten the help that Barcelona got against PSG in 2017) and (2) if defending is an art, Liverpool is Jackson Pollock — their backline

Roma scored what may have been the prettiest match-winner in the Champions League this season. But the celebrations following the Radja Nainggolan goal vs Liverpool were as muted as could be, because the Reds had more than enough cushion to hold on for a 7-6 aggregate victory in the Champions League semifinals on Wednesday in Rome. 

Liverpool is almost certainly into the 2018 Champions League Final holding, at the time of writing this, a 7–3 aggregate lead over Roma. They’ve equalled Roma’s away goal tally, but they’ve also conceded a brilliant own goal involving Real Madrid’s favorite defensive liability, Dejan Lovren.

The goal was scored by the greatest playmaker the Champions League has ever seen, James Milner, and I think you can already tell how special this is. 

In the end, Bayern Munich only has itself to blame. If you want to get particular about it, it’s left back Rafinha and goalkeeper Sven Ulreich who deserve the most condemnation. The duo absolutely gifted Real Madrid two of its four goals, a devastating bit of self-sabotage against the back-to-back world champion.

If Real Madrid wins a third straight Champions League title on May 26 in Kiev, Cristiano Ronaldo and company will have earned every bit of it. Karim Benzema scored two goals for Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich on Tuesday at the Bernabeu as the Merengues advanced to the Champions League final for the third straight year with a 2-2 draw and 4-3 aggregate victory. 

Have you ever heard of the curse of Bela Guttmann? After defeating Real Madrid 5-3 in the final of the 1962 European Cup, Benfica manager Bela Guttmann asked the board of directors for a pay raise. He was denied and left the club, but not before saying, “Not in a hundred years from now will Benfica ever be European champions.” 

The club has since lost eight subsequent European finals.