Liverpool “Can Beat Any Team in the World” Says Sadio Mané

There’s still more work to do this season, and Liverpool certainly didn’t make things easy on themselves on Wednesday against Roma, but for a little while at least it would be wrong not to bask in the glow of what this side has already achieved.

A Champions League final. The club’s first in over a decade . And along with it, a chance to now win their sixth title in the competition. It is, already, a dream come true according to star winger Sadio Mané. Even if there’s more to do.

“I think the dream came true,” an excited Mané told the club’s official website following the match. “I think we deserved to win and to play this final. Before the game I always in my head think we can do it because we have the quality.

“We also try to work as a team and we are Liverpool and we are strong, so that’s why we always believe. Dealing with pressure is part of football. We tried to believe and we scored the first goal and in the end I think it was the key tonight.”

That first goal, a cooly taken effort by Mané on the counter that proved to everyone—all the fans and the players on both sides—that Liverpool wouldn’t make the mistake Barcelona did in the quarter-finals and sit back in the second leg.

It proved that Liverpool could score on the road against a side that had proven very, very difficult for opponents at the Stadio Olimpico. It was an important goal from the man who was Liverpool’s best player on the evening.

Now, after two more league games, the focus will turn to Real Madrid in the final. Madrid will rightly be favourites, but not by an unassailable margin. And Mané thinks there can be an even better ending to this dream.

“I have big respect for Real Madrid and we are not the best team in the world but we have a great team,” he added. “We are Liverpool, we are strong, and we can beat any team in the world.”