Liverpool won the Champions League with a 2-0 victory over Tottenham in Madrid.

Mohamed Salah put the Reds ahead within barely two minutes of kick-off after Moussa Sissoko was adjudged to handle the ball in his own penalty area.

The Egyptian’s penalty kick beat Hugo Lloris in the Spurs goal comfortably before substitute Divock Origi added a second towards the end of normal time.

Here were the key talking points from the Estadio Metropolitano:

Come in no.6…

 

Rewrite the chants, adjust the banners and reset the countdown clocks.

Liverpool’s ascension to the Champions League throne for a sixth time in their history has changed everything that people thought they knew about them.

After the hurt of last year’s final, Jurgen Klopp’s side had two options: to either go harder in Europe’s elite club competition or retreat within themselves.

Anyone expecting the latter clearly underestimates the German. He has never been one to take defeat lying down, even after six successive final losses.

Neither do this team based on a season where they took Manchester City down to the wire in the Premier League title race and pushed boundaries in Europe.

On more than one occasion, they teetered on the brink; famously against Barcelona in the semi-final as well as their Group C finale with Napoli.

Through it all, however, Liverpool have continue to go above and beyond.

How times have changed for a club that once saw Champions League qualification as its sole target rather than a competition it could win.

Celebrations in both Madrid and Merseyside will continue long into the night. This has been a moment which Anfield has waited far too long to again realise.

Alisson repays every penny

 

Amid the celebrations, there was still a moment of bewilderment for Liverpool.

UEFA”s awarding of the Man of the Match to Virgil van Dijk had many scratching their head. Good as the Dutchman is, the game did not actually belong to him.

Alisson Becker’s uncompromising display in a second half where Spurs peppered his goal with shots from myriad distances deserved the truer recognition.

Situations which mirrored last year’s loss to Real cropped up regularly, not least when Christian Eriksen sought to forge an equaliser from a dead-ball situation.

Had Loris Karius still retained Klopp’s confidence after Kiev, history would almost certainly have come full-circle. Fortunately, Alisson is made of sterner stuff.

This was the reason why Liverpool had gone all-out to sign the Brazil international from AS Roma last summer for an eye-watering £65 million.

He definitely repaid every penny of the fee with this performance.

Sweet redemption for Salah

 

An early start killed Mohamed Salah’s last Champions League final appearance.

Injury by Sergio Ramos’ hand saw the Egyptian’s incredibly sparkling debut season at Anfield curtailed in the most cruel and undeserving fashion.

But redemption came just as easily for Salah as he set Klopp’s side well on their way to a sixth European crown within two minutes of the kick-off in Madrid.

Moussa Sissoko may argue that he was unfairly penalised for a handball decision from which the Reds’ front man was able to comfortably dispatch from 12 yards.

Salah may have hoped to make a more seismic impact on the biggest stage in club football but the game has a tendency to even out past injustices.

Unfortunately for the Tottenham midfielder, this was one of those cases.

Origi completes unlikely transformation

 

It’s amazing how quickly things can change in the space of 12 months.

Last year, Klopp sent on an unprepared Adam Lallana in Salah’s place while Divock Origi spent the night kicking his heels after a loan spell at Wolfsburg.

Lallana had been severely lacking match practice and begged the question as to why the Belgium international had been farmed out without a backup plan.

The answer has manifested itself in the best possible fashion for Origi.

Countless times this season, he has stolen the spotlight with goal-scoring cameos and his latest against Tottenham may go some way to cementing his standing.

Few players have pulled their Liverpool careers back from the brink but Origi may have provided the greatest example that it actually can be done.