Madrid's squad of 1981: That Liverpool was this Real Champions League Remembering the Paris final with MARCA

As six players from the Real Madrid team that faced Liverpool in the 1981 European Cup final reunited, the common theme running through their conversations was how the Red's team of that era were like the Los Blancos side of today.

Thirty seven years after that fateful evening in Paris, Agustin, Perez Garcia, Sabido, Del Bosque, Camacho and Santillana reminisced.

MARCA organised the meeting and were keen listeners and observers.

"A final is won, it is not played," Carlos Santillana, the captain of Real Madrid in 1981, said.

There are two things in his thoughts which the others echo: that Liverpool of 81 was superior to Madrid and that today the scenario is just the opposite.

"We can say that Liverpool then was this Madrid," explained Sabido.

"No one would have said that when starting this Champions League season, Liverpool would be there at the end.

"But they are there on merit, and the two teams have a long European tradition."

Camacho agrees and is entirely confident of the outcome in Kiev.

"There is no need to talk about revenge because that's a long time ago," he said.

"But this Madrid is the best team in the world, and are going to show it in the final."

Though neither team will insist upon a favourites tag, fortune favours Los Blancos, simply because of their most recent experiences in this competition.

"In football everything can happen, we know that better than anyone," Santillana added.

"But I think under normal circumstances Madrid has to be the favourite because they are a better team, score more goals... In the 1981 final, the feeling of favourites was for them, and English football was dominating in Europe, just as Spain is now."

Angel Perez Garcia, meanwhile, noted an important difference between Madrid and Liverpool today.

"The punch of this Madrid is tremendous," he argued.

"It's not a vendetta because although we still have that wound, what matters is to win one more.

"This Liverpool has a lot of goals in them, but also a lot of problems defensively.

"They don't compensate tactically, and with the potential we have, I'm sure we will win it."

The weight of Zamora's goal

Real arrived in Paris with many problems, but especially losing the league at the last moment.

"We were sorry to lose the league a few weeks earlier in Valladolid," Agustin opined.

"We finished our game and we were champions, and we were waiting on the pitch when Zamora's goal came at the Estadio El Molinon.

"It affected us a lot, and that Liverpool was a dominant team in Europe."

It wasn't a minor problem either, as Del Bosque explains.

"The merit of being a finalist was enormous: before, only the league champions played in the European Cup, now it's something else because it allows you to lose several games and be a champion.

"There were 31 teams, plus Honved, at the start of the tournament, and the Paris final had the weight that the team that lost was not going to play the next edition."

Camacho's chance

When the suggestion was made as to what would've changed the 1981 final, Santillana was clear.

"If Juanito hadn't had knee problems, if Cunningham had played ( he didn't because of months out with injury), and if Stielike wasn't injured 10 days before the game which made him play at 40 percent..."

Camacho had a one on one in the game when he faced Clemence alone.

"That year I played a lot in the middle, and I was up against Graham Souness, who was great," he said.

"I had an advantage because I was facing the best opponents and they weren't running after me, I really had a lot of fun.

"I broke the offside trap and saw Clemence coming out, but I hit the ball too high, and then I had another, but missed that too.

"In extra time, we had chances to win that European Cup."

Santillana, nevertheless, never thought Real would win.

"We were quite limited in that game," he noted.

"We didn't face it properly.

"Always keeping the 0-0 was the plan, to get to extra time, then penalties.

"We didn't have the ability to impose our football, and it's true that the goal came via an error that usually doesn't happen, but that's football.

"That's why now when we look at the final in Kiev we must always do it with the prudence that anything that can happen: an injury, a red card, an error..."

The staircase to the box

It's been almost 37 years, but Santillana is still thinking what it would have been like to climb the stairs to the box to pick up what would have been the seventh European Cup for Real.

"I've imagined it many times," he admitted.

"We were in Versailles, far from the noise of Paris, and it gave me a lot time to think about the final, how we would play and what it would be like to pick up the trophy.

"When you see the opponent doing it, your soul drops.

"You applaud but at the same time you think it could've been me, but that's the way life is.

"It's hard to play a final and lose it."

The 1980 European Cup

The defeat in Paris was hard for a team that had spent 15 years away from the trophy around which it has built a unique history.

"Arriving in Paris generated a huge amount of expectation among the Real Madrid side, because in the club, it was a long time since a final was reached and it was something very beautiful," recalled Del Bosque.

"But our final should've been the one a year before, the one played at the Bernabeu."

In the previous season Nottingham Forest won its second European Cup by defeating Hamburg at Madrid's stadium, in a rehearsal of what would be the final of the 1982 World Cup.

"We had won 2-0 at home, but the Germans of the 80s were like the Madrid of today, competitive animals," Agustin remembers.

"They beat us 5-1, a great team..."

Garcia Remon's yellow

"A great team, yes, but what about the referee," Camacho interjects.

"He gave Garcia Remon a yellow card and he was devastated."

You can still see Camacho's anger about the decision.

Pirri's 'chrome'

The Madrid in the final of 1981 was the one of the Garcia's: Remon, Perez, Hernandez, Cortes and Navajas.

"We were the Quinta prior to the Buitre," Perez Garcia smiled.

"I was lucky that Jose [Camacho] was injured for almost two years and they put me into the first team.

"In my first squad I had to share a room with Pirri, he was my idol.

"I was staring at the next bed, I saw him and he said to me, "f**k, you look like you had me in stickers!""

The memory of Boskov

Vujadin Boskov (1931-2014) was the coach who led Madrid to the final in 1981.

"He was a master, not only of football, he knew everything," Del Bosque said.

"It was the mixture of the Balkan and the Dutch schools.

"Santillana and I wrote down the exercises he brought.

"He was very demanding with the homegrown players, but the veterans were idolised,.

"Even if we played well, we always had something to improve."