5 sets of players who could decide the Champions League final

#3 Tottenham's central midfielders

Tottenham's central midfielders will be very important if they intend to stop Liverpool

In Tottenham's unfortunate 2-1 loss to Liverpool in March, Tottenham couldn't deal with the attacking threat of the Liverpool fullbacks. This was mainly due to Tottenham playing a 3-5-2 where they had no direct opponents for Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson.

Spurs were more concerned with Salah and Mane and concentrated more on their runs leaving no one to mark the Liverpool fullbacks. The first goal of the game came from a Robertson cross which was headed home by Firmino.

Realizing his mistake, Pochettino changed his team's shape to a 4-4-1 with the wide midfielders marking the fullbacks and the central midfielders marking the free Firmino. This finally gave a foothold to Tottenham in the game and stopped Liverpool from scoring more goals.

Hence, if Spurs want to win this final, they will need to stop Firmino from dropping between the lines by man-marking him. The onus of this work will clearly be on Tottenham's central midfielders. By doing this they could make Liverpool's attack one-dimensional with their attacks only emanating from wide areas.