Thousands of soccer fans were descending on Paris to see Liverpool and Real Madrid meet in the Champions League final later Saturday.
There are milestones at stake in the Stade de France.
Carlo Ancelotti is looking to become the first coach to win European club football’s top prize four times, adding to his 2014 success during his first spell in charge of Madrid. The Italian’s first two triumphs came with AC Milan in 2003 and 2007.
Ancelotti has already delivered the Spanish title in his first season back at Madrid, which beat Liverpool in the 2018 final led by Zinedine Zidane for a record-extending 13th European Cup.
Read: Real Madrid vs Liverpool: UEFA Champions League Final 2022 Preview
“We are very close to achieving something huge this season, and we will give our all to achieve it,” Ancelotti said. “We are very calm in the camp. This team is very good handling the pressure of this matches.”
Liverpool went on to become European champions for a sixth time by returning to the final in 2019. Since then Jurgen Klopp has ended the team’s 30-year English championship drought in 2020. While the Premier League was missed out on by a single point last weekend, the season can end with a rare treble of trophies, having already won the FA Cup and the League Cup.
Liverpool’s route through the knockout phase past Inter Milan, Benfica and Villarreal seemed relatively smooth. Madrid had to mount repeated comebacks.