Who are the Real Madrid and Liverpool head coaches and how much do they earn?

Liverpool and Real Madrid will contest the Champions League final in Paris next weekend in the last game of the 2021-22 season, a campaign that has reaped three trophies already for the two sides. Jürgen Klopp’s side missed out on the Premier League title in dramatic fashion on the final day of the domestic calendar but have won the FA Cup – the one major English club trophy to elude the German tactician – and the EFL Cup and will aim for a cup treble at the Stade de France. Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti also scored a first in his second spell at the Bernabéu, picking up the LaLiga title to complete his set at the Spanish giants while also becoming the first manager to won the league title in each of Europe’s “big five” leagues.

The Italian has already made another piece of history before a ball is kicked in the Stade de France: Ancelotti is the first manager to take a team to the final on five occasions and one of only three – with Bob Paisley and Zinedine Zidane – to win the Champions League three times. The only final where the Real Madrid manager has failed to lift the trophy was in 2004-05, against Liverpool, who staged one of the great European comebacks in Istanbul to triumph on penalties having been 3-0 down against AC Milan at half time.

The final will be the 11th meeting between Klopp and Ancelotti and just the third with the Italian at the helm of Madrid, following a 3-0 win and a 2-0 defeat against Dortmund in the Champions League group stage in 2013-14, a campaign that saw Madrid win the title. Ancelotti has faced Klopp’s Liverpool eight times (with Napoli and Everton), winning three, losing two and drawing three. The Italian’s record against Liverpool overall stands at W8, D3, L5.

Klopp has played Real Madrid nine times, with a record of W3, D2, L4. The bulk of those encounters came when the German was in charge of Dortmund, with whom Klopp reached the final in 2012-13 but lost 2-1 to Bayern Munich. While at the Westfalenstadion, Klopp beat Madrid three times – including a 4-1 semi-final win in that Champions League campaign – and lost twice – including a 3-0 defeat in the quarter-finals in 2013-14 that handed Madrid a 3-2 aggregate victory – with one group stage draw between the sides.

Going into Sunday’s final, Klopp will have to reverse a statistic if he is to add another Champions League title to his laurels: the Liverpool boss has never beaten Madrid while in charge at Anfield, losing the 2017-18 final 3-1 and being knocked out in the 2020-21 quarters after a 3-1 defeat at the Bernabéu and a goalless draw in the return leg.

Klopp’s Liverpool revolution

Klopp arrived at Anfield in 2015 after an eye-catching seven seasons at Borussia Dortmund, where he went toe-to-toe with Bavarian giants Bayern Munich and scooped two Bundesliga titles and a DFB-Pokal in a double-winning season, as well as a pair of German Super Cups.

Liverpool had famously gone 30 years without winning the English top flight before the German and his cap rolled into town but he delivered the title in style in 2019-20, guiding his side to the summit 18 points clear of Manchester City and 33 clear of third-placed Manchester United, losing just three games all season. Liverpool won the Champions League in the previous campaign, for a first triumph since the Miracle of Istanbul, and the addition of the FA Cup this season made Klopp just the second manager to win the Champions League, the FA Cup, the EFL Cup and the Premier League with the same English club, joining Sir Alex Ferguson on that most rarefied of perches.

This will be the German’s fourth Champions League final appearance, brining him level with Ferguson, Marcelo Lippi (Juventus) and Miguel Muñoz (Real Madrid). Klopp signed a two-year contract extension at Anfield in April, tying him to the club until 2026, and reportedly earns £15 million per season.

Ancelotti’s “impulse” guides Madrid to 17th final

Ancelotti was unceremoniously dismissed by Florentino Pérez at the end of the 2014-15 season, after a trophyless campaign at the Bernabéu. He was replaced by his former assistant Zidane, who led the side to three consecutive Champions League titles but was brought back from Everton after the Frenchman stepped down for a second time in 2021, on a reported salary of €6m per season (not taking bonuses into account).

Pérez stated upon sacking Ancelotti that he felt the club needed a “new impulse” but after the departure of Zidane he was seen as the ideal pair of hands to bring through a new generation of Madrid players with many of the side’s established stars well into their 30s. And the decision has paid dividends, the Italian turning Vinicius into an attacking force, coaching Karim Benzema to the best season of his career and embedding younger talent such as Eduardo Camavinga, Éder Militão and Fede Valverde into the side. That Madrid won LaLiga with four games to spare and reached the Champions League final despite losing their first-choice central defensive pairing last summer speaks volumes of Ancelotti’s abilities.

With a fourth Champions League crown up for grabs, Ancelotti stands on the verge of history. No coach has ever won the competition more than three times and only seven men have ever won it as a player and manager. It would also represent his seventh title at Real Madrid in three seasons, bringing him level in the all-time stakes with the legendary Vicente del Bosque. Suffice to say the “impulse” at the club won’t need changing for a while, especially after Pérez missed out on Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland this summer.