Jurgen Klopp needles Pep Guardiola ahead of Champions League final
Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City won the Premier League title this season. They will not, however, play for the Champions League title.
Liverpool will, and Jurgen Klopp reminded Guardiola with a good-natured ribbing during his media conference on Tuesday.
Guardiola said recently that winning the Premier League is more significant than winning Europe. And Klopp was ready when the question came up.
“Pep has to say that,” the Liverpool manager said, “as he hasn't been in the Champions League final for a while.”
Klopp’s burn was spot-on. Guardiola hasn’t been to the Champions League final since winning it with Barcelona in 2011, despite rampant domestic success in between with both City and Bayern Munich.
The Champions League is generally viewed as the top trophy in club soccer, with not only the prestige that comes with beating the best clubs in the world on offer, but also prize money that could surpass $90 million if everything breaks right, including more than $21 million just for reaching and winning the final.
By comparison, there’s a difference of about $2.5 million between each spot in the Premier League table, which means the team that finishes first – as City did this season – stands to make more than $50 million.
So while debate rages on over which format produces a more worthy champion, the prize money (not even factoring television rights) is tilted toward the Champions League.
Funny enough, if there’s one major club in the world where domestic success would be met with more enthusiasm than continental, it’s Liverpool, which has won the top flight 18 times but never in the Premier League era. The Reds have watched helplessly as bitter rival Manchester United has overtaken their record for most top-flight titles.
And now they’re powerless to alter Manchester City’s Premier League prowess, at least until next campaign.
This one ends on Saturday, in the Champions League final vs. Tottenham Hotspur. Who knows what fun Klopp will have if he wins that?
Joey Gulino is the editor of Yahoo Soccer and moonlights as a writer. Follow him on Twitter at @JGulinoYahoo.
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