MADRID, 28 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Real Madrid and Liverpool meet again tonight in a Champions League final, like the one they played in 2018. Two historic teams that have had nine players in their careers who have worn both shirts, in addition to a coach who has been on both benches.

However, despite the two teams having met many times over the years, no footballer had been to both clubs until Steve mcManaman led the way in the summer of 1999. After ten years at the Liverpool, the British player made the leap to Real Madrid, with whom he played four seasons and won two Champions.

The next big move between the two teams came in the summer of 2004, when Michael Owen, who had won the Ballon d’Or in 2001, traded Liverpool for Real Madrid. However, the striker did not adapt well to playing in Spain and left the club after just one year, being transferred to Newcastle United for 25 million euros.

On the opposite path, the first notable case was that of Fernando Morientes. The player from Toledo, without opportunities at Real Madrid after eight years in white, went to Liverpool in January 2005 and was proclaimed European champion. He renewed and stayed another season in England before returning to Spain to play for Valencia.

2005 Champions League winners Liverpool had an unlikely hero in the final, Polish goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek, who saved two penalties in the shootout to hand his team the title. Two years later, in the summer of 2007, he joined Real Madrid as a veteran, since he was 34 years old, and with the role of substitute for Iker Casillas. Dudek remained at the white club until his retirement in 2011.

The high point of this relationship came in the summer of 2009, when Real Madrid signed Álvaro Arbeloa and Xabi Alonso from Liverpool. The defender, a youth player for the white team, with whom he had debuted in the 2004-05 season, played for the ‘reds’ between 2006 and 2009, when Real Madrid crossed his path again, where he played seven seasons and won two Champions.

Xabi Alonso was one of the most controversial cases of the names on this list. The midfielder, who played five seasons at Liverpool, winning the Champions League and the two cups played in England, was an idol at Anfield. In the summer of 2009, Real Madrid’s interest in the footballer intensified after the arrival of Florentino Pérez and a soap opera took place that led to the player from San Sebastian requesting a ‘transfer request’ from his club in order to be able to leave. For a figure close to 35 million euros he arrived in the capital of Spain, where he played in white for five years in which he won a league, a Champions League and two Copas del Rey.

The last player to go through the two clubs was Nuri Sahin, who is also the only one who has been on loan. After arriving at Real Madrid in 2011 as a star, the German player did not have a good year in white and left on loan to Liverpool, where he played the 2012-13 season. In England he did not succeed either and returned to Madrid, but not to stay, but to go on loan again, in this case to Borussia Dortmund.

The other players who have been on both teams are Nikolas Anelka, who played for Real Madrid in the 1999-00 season and wore Liverpool colors for half a year in 2002 on loan from Paris Saint-Germain, and Antonio Núñez, a youth player for the white team who played one year, 2004-05 in the first team and from there he made the leap to Liverpool, where he only played one season.

Off the field, there is only one coach who has sat on both benches, Rafa Benítez. Trained at Real Madrid as a player and as a coach, the man from Madrid signed for Liverpool in 2004, where he stayed until 2010 and became a legend. In 2015 he became coach of Real Madrid, replacing Carlo Ancelotti, but he was unsuccessful. He was fired in January 2016 and the white team ended up winning the Champions League with Zidane on the bench.

There is also a curious case, that of the Welshman John Benjamin Toshack. In his playing career, he defended the colors of Liverpool for eight years, with which he won the European Cup, and after retiring he coached Real Madrid during the 1989-90 season, winning a league with the white club.