A bright start from Liverpool but losing Mo Salah has burst their bubble for the last 15 minutes. Real Madrid, forced to start slowly, are coming more and more into it. Liverpool and Klopp need to stress the importance of getting the ball up to Firmino who has to station himself further up the pitch to force Real Madrid backwards.  

Kroos bends the inswinger to the near post where it's headed clear. Liverpool have no one up front to soak up the ball and time so back come Real Madrid with Benzema who whacks a shot from 20 yards that scuds wide of the left post. Karius dives but more for belt and braces than any need. 

The first of three added minutes begins with Marcelo pushing high up the left, a run that ends with Alexander-Arnold's patient jockeying and crisp tackle. Corner. 

Terrific cross from the left by Benzema arcs over the defenders and dips beyond the back post to meet Nacho's run. The replacement right-back had motored 60 yards to meet it on the volley, but flays it into the side netting. 

Real Madrid put the ball in the Liverpool net but Benzema, who knocked it in with a right foot shot into the corner after Ronaldo's header was saved by Karius, was offside. (So was Ronaldo, who should have scored from Isco's sublime chip but he would not have been punished had he converted but he placed it too close to the keeper). 

Mane loses the ball and Real fly up the left only for Ronaldo to give the ball away with a wayward pass that should have been an easy one. 

Liverpool's lines are very tightly organised and compact in defence as Real Madrid try to penetrate. Modric, at last, goes on a dribble down the right and tries to cross but Van Dijk slides in to block the centre out and behind for a corner. Real Madrid send the header beast Ramos up but then take it short and Liverpool snuff it out with dynamic, indeed gegen, pressing. 

Carvajal, too, departs in tears. Nacho will replace him. 

Carvajal who was injured in last year's final seems to have done his hamstring - as he did last year - when trying a backheel up the right wing on the overlap. Klopp uses the break to gather his 10 outfield players and talk to them on the rouchline. 

Excellent block from Lovren, stopping Benzema's point blank shot. Every Ramos touch is being booed by Liverpool's fans. Was he to blame? Well, he hung on to Salah as he fell but I doubt he could have deliberately fallen on him in such a premeditated way at the moment the pint of his shoulder hit the ground. It would have been very difficult to choreograph that. 

Adam Lallana replaces Mo Salah and goes to the left. Sadio Mane moves to the right. 

Salah sits down and in floods of tears says he can't go on and is clutching his left shoulder. What a shame. Lallana is getting stripped to come on. Salah puts his head on Klopp's arm and weeps.

Liverpool corner after clever work from Mane down the left forces Carvajal to concede it. Liverpool set up for an inswinger. Navas is given a free-kick for Wijnaldum blocking him off but it wasn't much. 

Huge concern for Liverpool as Salah waves on the physio, yelling in pain after falling on his shoulder with Ramos on top of his arm with their arms interlocked. He pins him to the floor. After two minutes, he springs back up after some treatment. 

And Robertson squares it to Firmino back to goal about 15 yards out. His turning circle is quite large because of the pace of the pass but he manages it, swivels and shoots. Ramos blocks it with his shin and the ball rebounds out to Trent Alexander-Arnold pushing high into the box on the right. He strikes his shot crisply and cleanly, larruping it towards goal from 12 yards and Navas pulls off a fine save low to his right, catching it at the second attempt. 

Alert defending from Ramos mops up the ball when a ball from Roberston, spun up the left, gives Mane a 50-50 chance of getting in on goal. Back come Liverpool at pace down the left ...

Real Madrid, weathering the storm so far but by the seat of their pants, are keen to deflate the tempo a little though they still look confident on the break. Milner gets a telling off for standing on Carvajal's foot as the right-back tried to get past him. 

Salah swings it in with his left and Navas is all over the place, swiping at thin air behind Van Dijk who easily beat him to it but not the ball that loops over him. 

Extraordinary backpass from Carvajal intended for Ramos is so wildly off target that Liverpool nab a cheap corner from the right. 

Ronaldo switches wings and is played in down the right by Carvajal's run and Casemiro's fine pass. He accelerates with electric verve and takes the shot on from an angle of about 340 degrees as Van Dijk cannily forces him wide. He absolutely belts his shot and it beats the crossbar by about six inches. He should have crossed, of course. 

Liverpool soft shoe through the Real Madrid box after Kroos' crude foul on Mane. Firmino can't get the ball from under his feet before Carvajal hacks it clear but the way Liverpool are pressing Real Madrid keeps them on the front foot and Real Madrid uncharacteristically prone to panic. 

The first raid from Marcelo, linking up with Benzema and spurting past Milner down the inside-left channel. He advances to about 25 yards from goal and spears a low shot on the run past the far post. 

Varane doesn't clear adequately and back come Liverpool, hooking a cross towards Firmino whose deflected header bounces out to the right of the box where Alexander-Arnold and Salah are lurking and ready to pounce. Navas beats them to the knockdown. Very impressive start from Liverpool.

Lovely work from Firmino who takes a pass 40 yards from goal, turns and laces a lovely pass that provokes panic and a scramble between Navas, Marcelo and Ramos to get it clear. 

Liverpool free-kick about 21 yards out on the left by the angle of the box after Salah was tripped. Salah takes it but Modric bursts out of the wall to block and leads the charge upfield. Isco catches Alexander-Arnold dawdling and knocks it past him but Karius is alert and sweeps up, 10 yards outside his area. 

Liverpool move it forward slickly and Salah again wriggles free to play in Wijnaldum with a cute pass and the Dutchman scuds a daisycutter shot at Varane. 

Alexander-Arnold has Ronaldo within breathing distance and the latter scoots down the left and works in a cross as Lovren backs off. Liverpool clear but Real Madrid  and Cravajal launch it long back in to the box. Isco, offside, tries to connect with a flying scissors kick but Karius beats him to it. 

Liverpool kick off to the strains of Allez x3. Milner knocks it back and Liverpool chip it up the inside-left channel. Varane sweeps round the back to mop up a Salah through ball intended for Mane and Real counter up the left. Lovren puts Ronaldo on his backside and the ball into touch. 

An almost perfect Paddington Bear stare in the tunnel from the Real No7 to the Liverpool No11. 

Cue the music:

♫ Die Meister
Die Besten
Les Grandes Équipes
The Champions ♫

It will be very tense. We didn't speak about [a fast start] we always do that. We don't need an early start and 1-0 after two minutes because it won't make them unstable. We need a solid start. Probably their bench could qualify for the final but it's 11 v 11, we are happy to be here. Now let's go out there and play. 

As are scores of Liverpool banners. They love a banner, Liverpool, ever since the days of Joey Jones and the Swiss Roll ...

Didn't even manage to nab a new suit out of getting here. Very poor player pool etiquette there:

Real Madrid Keylor Navas; Dani Carvajal, Sergio Ramos, Raphael Varane, Marcelo; Casemiro, Toni Kroos, Luka Modric; Isco, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema.
Substitutes Kiko Casilla, Nacho, Theo Hernandez, Mateo Kovacic, Lucas Vazquez, Gareth Bale, Marco Asensio.

Liverpool Loris Karius; Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dejan Lovren, Virgil van Dijk, Andrew Robertson; Georginio Wijnaldum, Jordan Henderson, James Milner; Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane.
Substitutes Simon Mignolet, Nathaniel Clyne, Alberto Moreno, Ragnar Kalavan, Emre Can, Adam Lallana, Dominic Solanke.

Referee Milorad Mazic (Serbia)

He has been a winner in 2008, 2014, 2016 and 2017 and a runner-up in 2009. He has scored 121 Champions League goals, four in finals plus a match-winning shoot-out penalty in 2016. 

We think Liverpool's will be as predicted, and so will Real Madrid's with their diamond midfield and Gareth Bale as the £90m impact sub:

Real Madrid likely XI Navas, Carvajal, Varane, Ramos, Marcelo, Casemiro, Modric, Kroos, Isco, Ronaldo, Benzema.

They were absolutely terrible at home against Juventus and Bayern Munich for about an hour of each game but got the job done in the first leg. Their performances can be infuriatingly inconsistent, with flaws and flamboyance. But they are winners.  

Here's his goal from 1981 

 Here are his memories of that day, as told to Chris Bascombe:

“It’s funny to think back then because even though we were playing Real Madrid, we felt they were in awe of us more than we were them. It wasn’t a great game. Graeme Souness took a kick early on from Uli Stielike and played with injury, and Kenny Dalglish wasn’t fully fit.

“The pitch in Paris was also awful, one of the worst we ever played on and it was no place for a final. Even the organisation was shambolic. When we got to the ground Uefa told us we couldn’t wear our kit because we had a sponsors name ['Hitachi’] on it. We had to get out a spare and put sticking tape over the Umbro signs. We’re in the dressing room 20 minutes before kick-off checking each others logo! It was ridiculous, really. Madrid had some dangerous players but the longer the game went on the more we felt we’d win – and then the chance came my way.

“Bob Paisley’s advice to me was always to 'get around the outside of them’, and I’d had a couple of efforts  before the goal. I always felt I could get a chance, which is a great thing to believe as a left-back. The winning penalty in Rome three years later was a more nerve-racking experience, but you just feel privileged to have played your part in that kind of success.”

BT Sport has begun its coverage by introducing us to three Champions League-winning captains who make up its studio punditry team: Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand. Frank and Rio have Benitez-esque barber shop quartet waistcoats on. Gerrard opts for a less ostentatiously Jacomo look. And BT will delight all of you who are subscription strangers to its prime product with Glenn Hoddle and Steve McManaman in the dual co-commentator role.    

If Kamara's deepthroat is accurate, Liverpool will send out the XI we thought would start.

And welcome to live coverage of the 2018 Champions League final. Real Madrid, the most successful club in Europe, begin their quest for a 13th title at 7.45pm in Kiev while Liverpool, who delayed them getting their seventh for a further 17 years at Parc des Princes in 1981 when Alan Kennedy controlled Ray Kennedy's throw-in, drove through the air and thrashed that unstoppable riser past Agustín, are in pursuit of their sixth. Should Liverpool win today it would move them ahead of Bayern Munich and behind only Real and Milan in the history of this competition. A sixth may mess up the symmetry of those banners that recall victories in Rome (twice), London, Paris and Istanbul which look so striking with one giant trophy in the middle, flanked by two, but you'd have to be a proper Gompertz to worry about the aesthetics of any necessary redesign. 

Logic makes Real Madrid the favourites to win a third consecutive European Cup and the first to a hat-trick of successive wins. They've got Cristiano Ronaldo, after all, who scored in the final for Manchester United 10 years ago to win his first and has won with Real in 2014, 2016 and 2017, as well as the impeccably elusive Isco, Sergio Ramos (captain, talisman, indomitable aerial predator), menacing marauder Marcelo et al. 

But to counter that Liverpool have a front three whose movement is truly mesmerising and in Mo Salah, pushed high up the right, the perfect opponent to stop Marcelo orchestrating play, Andrew Robertson, who is enjoying a sensational debut season, Giorginio Wijnaldum who covers a multitude of sins further back, the smooth and increasingly impressive Virgil van Dijk and James Milner, the team's beating heart. 

Contrasting styles bestow the promise of a classic - which 1981 decidedly wasn't. We've had some topsy-turvy thrillers and a few good halfs but not a pulsating, knife-edge competitive cracker for the full 90 minutes since perhaps 2002.

Stay with us for all the build-up, team news, melodrama and close harmony singing. We'll be smothered in a greetings-card shopful of sick-making inspirational quotes over the next few hours by TV, radio and Twitter as well as Bill and Bob's greatest hits. Let's pre-empt that game with something a bit mpre eloquent from the Liverpool laureate Pete Wylie:

Well did you ever hear of hope?
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
A small belief can mean
you'll never walk alone.

Can the power of six prove greater than 13? Join us as we find out.