Fabinho back in training for Liverpool ahead of Champions League final

By Sports Desk May 25, 2022

Liverpool midfielder Fabinho resumed training on Wednesday in a boost for Jurgen Klopp ahead of the Champions League final.

The Premier League side take on Real Madrid in Paris on Saturday for the biggest prize in European club football, but it was feared Klopp could be without two of his key midfielders.

Thiago Alcantara remained absent from the AXA Training Centre after suffering an Achilles injury in Sunday's win over Wolves, but Fabinho – who has not played since sustaining a muscle strain at Aston Villa two weeks ago – was in attendance and appeared to take part in full training.

Klopp had previously expressed confidence that the Brazil international will be fit for the final.

Liverpool have had a slightly better win percentage this season in all competitions with Fabinho in the side (74.5 per cent with, 73.3 per cent without) and have conceded marginally fewer goals on average (0.7 per game with, 0.9 per game without).

Joe Gomez, who came off injured with an ankle issue in the win at Villa, was also back in training but is unlikely to feature from the off at the Stade de France having made just 11 starts for the Reds in all competitions this season.

Related items

  • Tuchel replicates Beckenbauer feat and Coman maintains title run: The Opta facts behind Bayern's Bundesliga triumph Tuchel replicates Beckenbauer feat and Coman maintains title run: The Opta facts behind Bayern's Bundesliga triumph

    In 2000, it was Bayer Leverkusen who suffered final-day heartbreak as Bayern Munich overhauled them to clinch one of their most dramatic Bundesliga title triumphs.

    This time around, it was Borussia Dortmund's turn to lament the most galling of near misses, while their rivals lifted the Meisterschale following Jamal Musiala's late winner at Koln.

    The most topsy-turvy title race in Europe's top-five leagues this campaign, therefore, ended in familiar fashion, with Bayern maintaining their stranglehold on the German crown.

    After Bayern overcame a stern Dortmund challenge to win their 11th consecutive Bundesliga title, Stats Perform looks at the best facts and figures to emerge from their triumphant campaign.

    The headline stats

    There has never been much doubt regarding Bayern's status as the dominant force in Germany. Their latest title win represents their 33rd overall, and their 32nd since the Bundesliga was founded in 1963. Combined, all other clubs in Bundesliga history have 28.

    Meanwhile, Bayern's current streak of 11 consecutive domestic titles is the longest such run in the history of Europe's top five leagues.

    However, as the decision to dispense with Julian Nagelsmann's services and bring in Thomas Tuchel in March would suggest, this has not been a vintage campaign for Bayern.

    Having edged out Dortmund on goal difference after both teams finished with 71 points, Bayern's class of 2022-23 collected the fewest points of any Bundesliga-winning team since 2009-10, when Die Roten were crowned champions with 70.

    Bayern's tally of 21 victories this term was actually bettered by Dortmund (22), who became just the second team in the three-points-for-a-win era to boast the most wins in a Bundesliga season and not win the title (after Leverkusen in 1996-97).

    Tuchel takes the prize

    While Tuchel's Bayern did not get close to the incredible point tallies recorded under Jupp Heynckes, Pep Guardiola or Carlo Ancelotti, the new boss did enough, rallying his team to collect 12 from their final five matches and pip his former employers at the last.

    Tuchel became only the second coach to take over a Bundesliga club during the second half of a season and lead them to the title, after the legendary Franz Beckenbauer did so with Bayern in 1993-94.

    While Beckenbauer took the reins from matchday 21 of that campaign, Tuchel did so from matchday 26 this term, making it the latest managerial change from a Bundesliga-winning team.

    Muller extends his record, Musiala the main man

    Bayern's last-gasp triumph also ensured several key players kept up their own incredible records of domestic success.

    While attacking stalwart Thomas Muller won a record-extending 12th German title, Kingsley Coman – who opened the scoring in Bayern's final-day win at Koln – preserved his record of finishing every season of his professional career as a domestic champion.

    Having won Ligue 1 twice with Paris Saint-Germain and Serie A as a Juventus player in 2014-15, Coman has now lifted the Meisterschale eight times during his spell in Bavaria.

    Those records, however, owe everything to Musiala's intervention against Koln, with the 20-year-old stepping off the bench to fire into the bottom-right corner as stoppage time loomed.

    That strike was his 12th of the Bundesliga campaign, one more than he had managed in 57 combined appearances in the competition before this season.

    It was a fitting way for Musiala to cap a season in which only Eintracht Frankfurt's Randal Kolo Muani (26) bettered his tally of 22 Bundesliga goal contributions.

  • Tatum on White's buzzer-beater: 'That s*** was crazy!' Tatum on White's buzzer-beater: 'That s*** was crazy!'

    Boston Celtics hero Derrick White said "It just had to be won" after his buzzer-beating tip-in forced the Eastern Conference finals to Game 7, as Jayson Tatum added: "That s*** was crazy!"

    From 3-0 down against the Miami Heat, the Celtics have fought back to 3-3 in the series, and are now just one win away from making history.

    White grabbed and then sank the rebound from Marcus Smart's failed three-pointer with 0.1 seconds remaining to seal a 104-103 victory in Miami on Saturday.

    The Celtics are now on the brink of the greatest comeback in NBA playoffs history, needing a win at home in Game 7 on Monday to become the first team to win a series after losing the first three games.

    Boston are only the fourth NBA team to erase a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series to force a deciding game.

    Reflecting on the game-winning moment, Tatum told reporters: "I'm still, like, in disbelief. That s*** was crazy.

    "That felt like the longest 10 seconds ever waiting for confirmation if he made it or not."

    White told TNT: "It had to be won. Whatever it takes, our backs against our wall, it just had to be won.

    "We're a resilient group. We pick each other up, we bond for each other.

    "The job isn't done yet, we've got a tough one Game 7, we've got to find a way to get one more win."

    White had tears sparkling in his eyes, but explained: "I'm just happy. So far, so good."

    It is just the second time in league history that a player has hit a buzzer-beater when his team was down and facing elimination, after Michael Jordan's legendary "The Shot", way back in 1989.

    "Derrick White, like a flash of lightning, just came out of nowhere and saved the day, man," team-mate Jaylen Brown added. "An incredible play."

    The Heat can only lick their wounds as they head to Boston for Monday's winner-takes-all matchup.

    Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said: "It's a seven-game series. There's nothing better than Game 7s.

    "I don't know how we're going to get this done, but we're going to go out there and get it done, and that's what the next 48 hours is about.

    "There's been nothing easy about this season for our group, and so we just have to do it the hard way."

    Jimmy Butler did his best for Miami, with 24 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists.

    "We've got to go on the road and do something special, but we've got a special group," Butler said.

  • Gareth Southgate knows Euro 2024 must go ‘very, very well’ to keep England job Gareth Southgate knows Euro 2024 must go ‘very, very well’ to keep England job

    Gareth Southgate knows next year’s Euros will have to go extremely well for it to be a “possibility in anybody’s eyes” for him to stay on as England manager.

    The 52-year-old was parachuted into the hotseat following Sam Allardyce’s ignominious exit in 2016 and has gone on to oversee the national team’s best spell since winning the World Cup.

    England reached the 2018 semi-finals before losing the delayed Euro 2020 final in an agonising penalty shoot-out defeat to Italy at Wembley.

    There were more signs of progress as the team were edged out by France at last year’s World Cup, but a challenging year meant Southgate had to weigh up whether to see out his contract until 2024.

    The England boss decided to stay on after a week of contemplation following Qatar, but next summer’s European Championship could prove his last finals in charge.

    “My contract is until the December,” Southgate said. “That was always put in place because it would allow everybody reflection time, really.”

    Asked if the Euros would be his last tournament, Southgate said: “Who knows?

    “I think we’ll have to go very, very well for that to be a possibility in anybody’s eyes and that’s fair enough. I’m more than comfortable with that.

    “My aim is to try and win the tournament and everything I do is geared around that and every conversation I have with the players now is geared around that.

    “So, what will happen in the future at the moment it isn’t at the forefront of my mind, but trying to win this European Championship is.”

    England are third favourites with the bookmakers to triumph in Germany next year, and that is all the manager is focused on right now.

    ‘Succession’ is a buzzword thanks to the popular US TV series, but Southgate has not seen the show and was unwilling to talk about potential candidates for a job he cares deeply about.

    “Whatever (input) John (McDermott, Football Association technical director) and everybody else at the FA would like, really,” he said.

    “I’m not precious about it. If I could help in any way, at whatever point. I try to do that now with involvement in the pro licence, with reaching out to English coaches.

    “We’ve had people in to have the odd day here and there with us at training.

    “That’s not my decision but I’d always help English football as much as I can.

    “At whatever point I leave here, hopefully we’ve won something, but if I’m the second most successful I’ll be more than happy to become third very quickly.

    “I joined here to help English football and that will never change for me.”

    England’s immediate focus is taking a giant stride towards Germany by beating Malta and North Macedonia in June, but for a number of players their future is up in the air.

    Harry Kane, Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham are subject of widespread speculation, while a lack of game-time is an issue for Southgate’s favourites Harry Maguire and Kalvin Phillips.

    “There’s potentially a lot of movement with that squad we’ve picked across the summer, but I think it will be later in the summer,” the England boss said.

    “It doesn’t worry me how it plays out. I think as a player you always back yourself. You’ve got to.

    “You’ve got to have the mentality that ‘wherever I go I’m going to force my way into the team’ until such point as which it becomes apparent where ‘maybe I’ve got to go’.

    “And maybe we’ve got a couple in the squad who’ve got that decision to go through in their own minds this summer.”

    That self-confidence has paid dividends for Jack Grealish, who struggled to make the desired impact in his first season at Manchester City.

    But the 27-year-old has come on leaps and bounds this term under Pep Guardiola, who Southgate considers the best coach in the world.

    “I’m a huge admirer,” the England boss said. “He knows that, I’ve told him.

    “Of course it’s been brilliant for our players to work with him and they have learned individually, tactically and, probably as much as anything, that mentality.

    “You mention Jack, he’s played properly, I would say, in this period. You know, against Real Madrid with and without the ball.

    “That wasn’t the case two-and-a-half years ago, if I’m honest, so there’s been a lot of progress.”

© 2023 SportsMaxTV All Rights Reserved.