The Warm-Up: Liverpool go to the wire in Rome, Klopp promises they'll 'be on fire' in Kiev

“We were in a League Cup final and didn’t win it. People don’t tell me in the street since then: ‘Thank you for bringing us to the final.’ We were in the Europa League final too. Nobody tells me thank you. I see no trophies after these games. They don’t hang silver medals at Melwood. That’s a pity, but that’s the game. There’s still a job to do. [Real Madrid] are experienced, we are not, but we will be really on fire.”

Jurgen Klopp is starting to produce the soundbites that commemorative documentaries are made of. After Liverpool went from 5-0 up in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final to edging through 7-6 on aggregate at a roaring Stadio Olimpico, Klopp had enough words for the entire back cover of the DVD.

Perhaps it was no surprise that Liverpool would fight the expected second leg fire with fire. They have now scored 130 goals this season, a scarcely believable 40 of them in the Champions League alone (not even counting the six they put past Hoffenheim in the qualifying round. Bloody hell, remember the qualifying round?!) and last night was entirely in keeping with a set of semi-finals that have produced 20 goals in their 360 minutes.

“A big compliment for Roma,” Klopp added, as the Italians rallied with a 4-2 win that was just not enough. “What a performance, what a comeback, what a great football game. In the high-intense moments we had brilliant counterattacks but not enough to finish them. There was a few penalty situations but I didn’t see them back so far. It was first time we were not as good as we can be.”

Nobody really remembers the scoreline in second legs, though. It’s all about getting to the final where, as they did in ‘81, Liverpool will meet Real Madrid in ‘18. Having shipped six to Roma over two games, there must be some concern about what Cristiano Ronaldo and co might do in those rare spells when Salah/Mane/Firmino aren’t running riot at the other end.

The only fans who apparently don’t need to worry are the neutrals – surely this one will be a cracker.

“I want to finish this love story well.”

Meanwhile, Arsene Wenger has started to let the lines flow in the days since his Arsenal departure was finally made official. Unlike Klopp, though – and no matter the storylines – Wenger doesn’t have the team to back his words up.

Arsenal will be at the Wanda Metropolitano tonight, plotting a way through Atletico Madrid’s defence to find at least one away goal. Diego Simeone’s almost comically committed rearguard have conceded just nine goals at home all season, and not once in their last 11 home games. This task, it feels OK to say, is bigger than the final itself.

“We come to a place with a good history for us,” Wenger said ahead of his 250th European match as a manager, referring to Arsenal’s toppling of Real Madrid on the way to the 2006 Champions League final. It was an understandable attempt to tap in to some recent history, but it is undermined by Arsenal’s present. They have lost almost half of their away games in all competitions this season, winning just seven out of 25. For every 2-0 win at the San Siro, there is a 4-2 defeat at Nottingham Forest, a 3-1 shocker at Swansea and a late surrender at Watford.

“Atlético’s history [of clean sheets at home] has to stop somewhere,” Wenger insisted. “We created chances in the first leg and we have to recreate those situations.”

Of all Wenger’s unflinching principles, optimism has perhaps been his most unreliable.

The season’s most unnecessarily protracted saga has, hopefully, come to an end after Harry Kane gave his observations – sorry, BROKE HIS SILENCE – over various things that it feels almost embarrassing to either type or say out loud: namely, the mild ridicule he faced after claiming a goal off his shoulder against Stoke, and then a tweet from the official FA Cup account that…oh god, don’t make us describe it.

“The FA tweet was a silly tweet,” Kane correctly pointed out. “We all know that. I talked to the gaffer about it and all we said was: ‘Would other countries do that to their players?’ Probably not.”

“It’s strange,” he said. “Maybe it’s a mentality thing. It is easier nowadays maybe to banter England players or take the mickey out of the England players. So if we don’t do well in the World Cup, then they can write and say: ‘We told you so.’ But that is maybe a weaker mentality.”

Whether Chris Smalling being cheekily video-edited to imply Harry Kane is in his proverbial pocket necessarily constitutes the old build-’em-up-and-knock-’em-down culture of English football is dubious, but credit is due to Kane for calmly reminding us all that official attempts at banter are always the absolute worst.

Heroic only, perhaps, for some refreshing honesty. Over in the Copa Libertadores, Nacional defender Jorge Fucile was being given the runaround by Santos’ 17-year-old prodigy Rodrygo. Some extreme action was required.

“I got nutmegged 3 times, for the first time ever in my career. There was no other way to deal with him, after the injury the game was calm.”

Nacional won 1-0. The reputation of Uruguayan defenders was duly upheld.

The rules of celebrating prematurely during a penalty shoot-out are quite clear: DO NOT CELEBRATE PREMATURELY DURING A PENALTY SHOOT-OUT. The instructions are to stand there – with the option of linking arms with your entire staff and substitutes – until it is mathematically safe to celebrate.

Nobody told Aldershot manager Gary Waddock these rules, though, and here he is getting slightly giddy as his side go 3-1 up in their National League play-off qualifier against Ebbsfleet.

Narrator: They lost 5-4 on penalties.

Frank Lampard speaks, er, frankly to the Guardian’s Simon Burnton. The final line is an unexpected slice of David Brent, too.

On this day in 1989, Diego Maradona is right in the thick of it as Napoli take a decisive 2-1 first-leg lead in the UEFA Cup final against Jurgen Klinsmann’s Stuttgart. Revenge would be had at Italia ‘90.

Boreham Wood vs AFC Fylde, anyone? Hello? Diego Costa vs Arsenal it is, then.