A rare break down the right side, a cross shot from Federico Valverde and there he was at the far post drifting off Trent Alexander-Arnold’s shoulder to score. The young Brazilian, Vinicius Junior. It was impossible to say that Liverpool, and Alexander-Arnold in particular, had not been warned.
Vinicius had troubled the Liverpool right-back before, when Real knocked Liverpool out of this competition last season. Since then, he has got better. Against Manchester City in the semi-final, he had been terrific.
Alexander-Arnold had been asked about his immediate opponent in the run up to the game and had replied by saying Liverpool would defend as a team. What else would we expect him to say?
More widely, though, the 23-year-old has had to listen to questions about his nuts and bolts defending for a while. He has been accused of switching off at key moments. Certainly it’s hard to say there was no evidence of that here.
Replays of a goal that came against the flow of the game showed the scorer probably six inches from being offside. Also, they showed that Alexander-Arnold was on his heels fractionally as the ball came across. It would not be fair to say the goal was his fault. Not everything that goes wrong for a football team has to have a culprit at the core. However, could Alexander-Arnold have done a little better? Possibly.
It was shame, too, as he had been terrific up until that moment. With Liverpool having so much possession and territory, Alexander-Arnold had been one of his team’s most effective outlets. It was easy to see here how Alexander-Arnold prefers to play this game.
Often he would push himself ahead of the Real front three when his own team had the ball, in an attempt to join with Liverpool’s attacking play, or at least make himself available if the ball needed to come deep to be recycled.
This is sometimes what can catch him out. Jurgen Klopp and the Liverpool manager’s staff rail at suggestions that the player they have done so much to develop cannot defend, but it is not his first instinct.
Occasionally he can be blind to what may be about to happen over his shoulder, and there were instances of that here even before the Vinicius goal.
For the first 45 minutes at least, Real had not been ambitious enough to trouble the Liverpool back four on a consistent basis. Against Manchester City in the semi-final, Vinicius was allowed to run from deep and at pace with the ball. This was what caused Guardiola’s team so much trouble, particularly in the first leg at the Etihad Stadium when the quickness of the injured Kyle Walker was absent.
Here, Vinicius really had not hurt Liverpool until the very moment he did. And by the time Alexander-Arnold and his team-mates realised, it was too late.