Karius had the kind of night that a goalkeeper will never be able to forget and as he later sobbed in front of the Liverpool end, trying to express his sorrow for two terrible errors you wondered at how long the young German’s career will take to recover. He had thrown a ball against Karim Benzema’s foot for Madrid’s first goal and flapped in the second of Bale’s which was struck from 40 yards by Bale in the firm belief that whatever by that point he did would turn to gold.

It would have been hard for Liverpool to win this final with a goalkeeper as lost as Karius was, but it was even harder without Mohamed Salah, their goal machine taken out of the final by a first half entanglement with Madrid’s great cynic-in-chief, Sergio Ramos. Jurgen Klopp stopped short of blaming the Madrid captain for a wrestle that ended with Salah thrust down hard onto his neck and shoulder with the arm that should have broken his fall locked in by Ramos.

The Egyptian left the pitch in tears on just half an hour and he seemed to know then what Klopp confirmed later, that the injury was “really serious” and could cost him a place at the World Cup finals. Ramos was not even booked and we will never know if he could have foreseen what would happen but there was no question that he held onto Salah long after the Liverpool man was going down at a precipitous angle, slammed into the pitch.