Saturday’s Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool promises to be a battle of contrasting styles. Los Blancos are a methodical group who rely on individual heroics, while the Reds follow a team-oriented system that emphasises sacrifice.

Each approach has its shortcomings. Madrid is sometimes too dependent on Cristiano Ronaldo’s scoring, and Liverpool is known to power down in the final 15 minutes of matches due to its exhausting pursuit of the football.

Neither side has looked particularly convincing en route to Kyiv, with Madrid nearly blowing a 3-0 aggregate lead to Juventus and Liverpool conceding unnecessary goals to Roma.

Here’s a look at each side’s biggest concern:

Exploiting Marcelo’s blindspot

Zinedine Zidane has a lot of confidence in his players – he’s resisted the temptation to bolster his squad in consecutive transfer windows – and perhaps none more so than Marcelo. Despite playing in a more limited position, the Brazilian left-back is allowed to roam free, join the attack, and score goals.

“He’s a top player with a lot of experience. He’s won pretty much everything there is to win in football and he’s a cornerstone of the Real Madrid team,” Zidane said recently.

While modern-day football often cries for a marauding full-back of Marcelo’s quality, his ambitiousness can come at a cost. When he is caught high up the pitch, opponents can exploit the space he leaves behind. And there is no one better suited to accept the invitation than Mohamed Salah.

Related: UCL final marquee matchup: Salah’s trickery vs. Marcelo’s positioning

The speedy Egyptian routinely got the best of Marcelo when the two faced off in the Champions League in 2016. Salah was playing for Roma at the time and was nowhere near the clinical inside-forward that he is today. But he still beat Marcelo in foot races, and on some of Salah’s forays into the attacking third, the left-back was nowhere to be seen.

Salah made Aleksandar Kolarov pay for taking similar gambles in the first leg of last month’s semi-final tie against Roma. A pair of perfect passes sprung Salah free as the Serbian international scrambled to get back into position, and Liverpool scored twice. The Giallorossi played a high line on that day as well – something Madrid has tried and failed to do in both the Champions League and La Liga this season – so Los Blancos should be wary.

Taking away Liverpool’s trump card

What manager Jurgen Klopp has achieved with such a utilitarian midfield is stunning. Georginio Wijnaldum, Jordan Henderson, and James Milner have combined for great success, pressing on cue to retrieve possession and unsettle the opponent. But on an individual basis, they pale in comparison to Luka Modric, Casemiro, and Toni Kroos. If Zidane adds a fourth midfielder into the mix – namely Isco – there’s a real sense that Madrid will overrun Liverpool in the middle of the park.

Another big difference between Madrid and Liverpool’s previous opponents is that Zidane doesn’t encourage the kind of open football that the Reds thrive on. He likes his team to be more deliberate in the build-up. There’s not the same urgency as Klopp’s Gegenpressing and less probability of error. Madrid takes a more balanced approach to football: Modric reads the pitch for answers, Casemiro acts as the equaliser, Kroos slows down the tempo, and Isco invades space.

Related: UCL final marquee matchup: Can Henderson tame Isco’s wobbly wizardry?

By dictating the rhythm of the game and lessening the margin of error, Madrid’s midfielders can weaken the efficiency of Liverpool’s press and allow star players like Ronaldo the time to express themselves.

Zidane’s squad is also strong enough to absorb blow after blow before striking on a counter-attack of its own. With a narrower formation than most, Madrid usually clogs up the centre of the pitch, making it difficult for teams to find a breakthrough. And Liverpool has struggled mightily this season against opponents that sit back, dropping points in matches in which it dominated possession. Zidane could frustrate the Merseyside outfit by refusing the invitation to play expansive football.

If Madrid wins a third Champions League in a row, no one will remember if it was pretty or not.

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)

Kiev – “We’ve won it five times,” Liverpool supporters sing to celebrate their five European Cup final victories, but Jurgen Klopp, manager of the English giants, is attempting to end a very different run of results in Saturday’s Champions League final.

Klopp has lost his last five finals, three with Borussia Dortmund before moving to Anfield in 2015, and two in his debut season with the Reds.

“They don’t hang silver medals at Melwood (Liverpool’s training ground),” Klopp warned amidst the euphoria of making it to Kiev this weekend after an enthralling 7-6 aggregate semi-final win over Roma.

“There’s still a job to do but that’s how it is. Going to a final is really nice but winning is even nicer.”

Those are words of a man who has been there and suffered before. Each of his five final defeats had their own context, but hurt all the same.

“If something is really important for you, you have to be ready for suffering. That is how life is,” Klopp said this week.

“If you want guarantees then don’t qualify for a final, stay at home or go on holiday.”

Klopp’s unfortunate run began in another Champions League final, five years ago at Wembley, as Dortmund lost out to bitter German rivals Bayern Munich 2-1 courtesy of Arjen Robben’s last-minute winner.

That run to the final proved to be the beginning of the end for Klopp’s great Dortmund side that had won two Bundesliga titles and thrashed Bayern 5-2 in the 2012 German Cup final – the only final success of his career.

A year on from Wembley, they lost to Bayern once more in the German Cup final 2-0 after extra-time in a highly contentious game as Mats Hummels – just one of many of Klopp’s Dortmund stars who would move to Bayern – had a goal wrongly not given before the 90 minutes were up when the ball had crossed the line in the days before goal line technology.

‘The legs will be fine’

Klopp’s final season at the German giants was a difficult one. A seventh-placed finish was far more respectable than seemed likely for most of the campaign as they even sat bottom of the Bundesliga in February, and a season to forget was capped with a 3-1 German Cup final defeat to a Kevin de Bruyne-inspired Wolfsburg.

Since joining Liverpool in October 2015, progress in the Premier League has been steady if unspectacular with two fourth-placed finishes after ending his first season in eighth. But it is in cup competitions that Klopp has made his mark on Liverpool.

Defeat on penalties to Manchester City in the 2016 League Cup final was followed by his first truly great Anfield night by coming from 3-1 down to beat Dortmund 4-3 in the Europa League quarter-finals.

Villarreal were then swept aside, but despite taking a deserved first-half lead against Sevilla in the final in Basel, Liverpool wilted after the break to lose 3-1.

Klopp’s demands on his players to play a high-energy pressing game has previously been blamed for his side’s form failing off towards the end of the season.

But with two weeks to prepare between Liverpool’s final Premier League game of the season and Saturday’s final, Klopp insists that won’t be the case this time round.

“We were unlucky in the (Europa League) final,” he added. “Second-half, it was legs. This time the legs will be fine.”

Kiev – Real Madrid can become the first side in 42 years to win three consecutive European Cups when the Spanish giants take on Liverpool in Saturday’s Champions League final.

Moreover, victory in Kiev would secure Madrid’s fourth European crown in five seasons.

Here, AFP Sports looks at other great sides that dominated Europe to see how Zinedine Zidane’s men compare:

Real Madrid (1955-1960)

Madrid call themselves the “Kings of Europe” and the feeling this competition is their own was born out of winning the first five European Cups.

Spearheaded by legendary Argentine striker Alfredo di Stefano, Madrid came from 2-0 down to beat Stade de Reims 4-3 in the first final.

Italian opposition in AC Milan and Fiorentina were then dispatched in the next two finals before Reims again were conquered in 1959.

The peak of Real’s reign came in the 1960 final when Eintracht Frankfurt were thrashed 7-3 at Glasgow’s Hampden Park with Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas scoring hat-tricks in what is widely regarded as on the best performances in the competition’s history.

Ajax (1970-1973)

Ajax became the next side to win three consecutive European Cups in the early ’70s, inspired by coach Rinus Michels’s conception of “Total Football,” where players interchanged positions in pioneering style, and the brilliance of Johann Cruyff.

Although Michels was only in charge for Ajax’s first title in 1971 against Panathinaikos, his philosophy was carried on by Cruyff with the high point his two goals that beat Inter Milan in the 1972 final.

Another title followed as Juventus were edged out before Cruyff left to forge another legacy as player and coach at Barcelona.

Bayern Munich (1973-1976)

The last side to do three in a row were Franz Beckenbauer’s Bayern as Dutch dominance gave way to a spell of German success.

Unlike Ajax, Bayern didn’t enthral the continent, though, and had significant chunks of good fortune along the way.

Atletico Madrid led their 1974 final until the final minute of extra-time when Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck levelled to send the final to a replay that Bayern romped 4-0.

Bayern beat Leeds United 2-0 in the final the following year before breaking St. Etienne’s hearts at Hampden Park 1-0 to complete the hat-trick.

The French side twice hit the woodwork in a match that became known as “the square posts” as St. Etienne believed the oddly shaped crossbar contributed to their defeat.

Liverpool (1976-1984)

In contrast to Saturday’s clash, when Liverpool met Real Madrid in the 1981 final, it was the English side who were in the midst of a dominant run.

Under Bob Paisley, Liverpool won the European Cup three times in five seasons, culminating in victory over Madrid after beating Borussia Monchengladbach and Club Brugge in 1977 and 1978.

“We weren’t afraid of them, the opposite in fact. We’d been in the final a few times, knew what it was about. They were the inexperienced ones,” Liverpool great Terry McDermott, who won all three finals, told AFP this week.

A final flourish for many of that squad came three years later by beating Roma on home soil on penalties for a fourth European crown.

Barcelona (2008-2015)

In contrast to their eternal rivals, Barcelona’s success in Europe’s premier club competition was limited to one victory until the turn of the century.

A second title inspired by Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto’o came in 2006 against 10-man Arsenal, but it was Pep Guardiola’s four-year spell in charge between 2008-2012 that is remembered as one of the greatest sides ever.

Sidelined by injury and team selection two years earlier, Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez combined to dazzle a highly-fancied Manchester United 2-0 to complete a treble in Guardiola’s first season.

United were the victims once more for arguably the best display of Guardiola’s reign in a 3-1 win to lift the trophy again two years later at Wembley.

The core of that side remained even after Guardiola’s departure and with the firepower of Luis Suarez and Neymar added to compliment Messi, Barca did the treble again in 2015 for a fifth European crown.