‘Will Take Salah 15 Years to Reach Level of Cristiano Ronaldo: Klopp

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has said that his star player, Mohamed Salah, has a long way to reach the calibre of Cristiano Ronaldo. He said that Salah will have to repeat this  season’s heroics “for the next 15 years”.

Salah and Ronaldo’s performance in the Champions League final will likely determine this year’s Ballon d’Or. The Ballon d’Or has normally changed hands between the Real Madrid superstar and Lionel Messi. Now the question is, can Salah break the duopoly?

“Mo played a fantastic season but Cristiano has played 15 seasons like this,” said Klopp. “He has scored something like 47,000 goals – crazy numbers.

“Why should we compare? At the time of Pele nobody compared Pele to other players and asked, ‘Is he as good as him?’

“Now we have Messi and Ronaldo. They have dominated football for a few years and there are so many other good players.

Klopp continued, “Messi and Ronaldo are in the final moment very often in the right position to score a goal and that’s the most difficult thing to do in the world. That’s why they are where they are. The Ballon d’Or is always between them. It’s deserved. When they stop playing football we’ll miss them, 100 per cent.”

Whatever the case, Klopp firmly said that he will not compromise his team’s attacking ideals. “If I was to ask the boys now, ‘What do you want to do in this game?’ They would say ‘What we always did’,” he said. “You try to create a plan to deny the qualities of an opponent, but you also have to bring through your own qualities.”

Liverpool FC will be facing off against La Liga giants Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League tonight. Both teams have had an incredible journey leading to the final.