Mohamed Salah and Sergio Ramos’ infamous tangle in the 2018 Champions League final is still a sore point for Jurgen Klopp.
Real Madrid’s Ramos took down Liverpool’s Salah in 31st minute of the Kyiv clash and the Egyptian left the pitch in tears to later be diagnosed with a dislocated shoulder.
Ramos made himself public enemy no.1 for Klopp and Liverpool when he collided with Salah in controversial circumstancesAFP or licensors
If he wasn’t then Liverpool fans’ most hated rival, he was soon spotted elbowing goalkeeper Loris Karius who went on to make two horrendous errors in the 3-1 defeat, later claiming he was diagnosed with concussion.
The defender, who is currently unemployed after leaving Sevilla in June, has long been an opinion divider.
One of the best of all-time when it comes to trophies, he’s been sent off on a massive 29 occasions, making plenty of enemies along the way, and one of those is undoubtedly Klopp.
The former Liverpool manager is currently enjoying a break from football ahead of joining Red Bull as their head of football on January 1, and took some time out to join Ramos’ former Madrid teammate Toni Kroos and his brother Felix on their podcast Einfach mal Luppen.
Klopp couldn’t quite get his head around the idea of Ramos being a ‘nice guy’ and when he put the question to Kroos, the former Madrid man perhaps unwittingly deflected with his answer.
“Is Mr Ramos actually a nice guy?” Klopp asked, to which Kroos replied: “Mr Ramos is a very good teammate.”
If that wasn’t awkward enough, Klopp then went on to further slate a man Kroos shared a dressing room with for ten years.
“I find that hard to believe, so he won’t be my favourite as a player,” Klopp said, before going even further.
He continued: “I always thought my central defenders were good enough not to have to get involved in that stuff.
“What is considered clever, ruthless in the world out there… of course he can’t know that he’s more or less ruining his [Salah’s] shoulder, but we all know that he accepted that. And I could never understand that mentality.
Einfach mal LuppenKlopp gave a scathing assessment of Ramos as a player and person[/caption]
“We can go through my teams and I never had players like that. And when I did have them, I made sure that they were no longer there at some point. That’s too much for me.
“And then the goals we conceded. That day I thought: what exactly did we do that it had to go like that? That day it was unfair, subjectively speaking.”
Klopp had earlier made comments about Ramos months after the defeat, which the defender responded to in a classy manner.
He said: “If Jurgen Klopp wanted to make this a justification for his loss, we felt that this was not the first final to lose, but in the end he is a great trainer and I’ve voted for him in the manager of the year award.”
Klopp would eventually exorcise some demons by winning the Champions League the following year, but he never got one over on Madrid or Ramos with Liverpool before stepping away from the dugout in June 2024.
He ended up with three wins, two defeats and a draw against Los Blancos with Borussia Dortmund, but with the Reds his record read six defeats and one draw, meaning Ramos and Madrid had the last laugh.
