Around the Liverpool squad, there is little doubt that the lavish signing of Virgil van Dijk has made the big difference in their run to this Champions League final, but he also represents a big difference within that squad. The assured Dutch centre-half is one of very few players - perhaps the only player - who has been bought on big money and has not faced big doubts about his quality at a very recent point in his career.

This perhaps reflects Jürgen Klopp’s real elite quality, and why his side have reached this most elite of occasions - and why this has been a work of near-genius.

He has made them far more than the sum of their parts, and that’s all the more impressive when you consider how many were recently little more than bit-part players.

Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures Show all 30 1 /30 Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Graeme Souness gestures at the photographers as the Liverpool squad pose for the pre-match team group, whilst Hungarian referee Karoly Palotai confers with his linesmen Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Liverpool goalkeeper Ray Clemence. This would be his 665th and final game for the club, having joined as a teenager fourteen years earlier Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Real’s Jose Antonio Camacho gets a foot up to compete with Alan Hansen Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 West German Uli Stielike surrounded by red shirts. He had faced - and lost - to Liverpool before in a European Cup Final, in 1977 for his previous club Borussia Monchengladbach. Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Another Real player familiar with Liverpool, and the only other non-Spaniard in their starting line-up, was Laurie Cunningham. Two years earlier he became the first British player to sign for Real Madrid when he moved from West Brom. He had badly broken a toe in November, which required two operations, and was reputedly rushed back at the behest of senior figures at the club into the starting eleven for the final despite not being fully fit. He would have a disappointing game by his high standards. Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Clemence gathers the ball as Sammy Lee and Hansen look on. Due to a dispute with the television broadcasters, Liverpool were ordered to cover up the Umbro logos on their shirts and shorts with tape shortly before kick-off Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Liverpool captain Phil Thompson clatters Jose Antonio Camacho Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Real’s Angel de los Santos exacts some revenge, on Terry McDermott… Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 …as does Andres Sabido on David Johnson Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Cunningham twists and turns to evades Souness and Phil Neal Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Cunningham twists and turns to evades Souness and Phil Neal Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Cunningham twists and turns to evades Souness and Phil Neal... Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Real captain Carlos Santillana bears down on McDermott Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 The two captains compete for the ball Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Lee under pressure from Antonio Garcia Navajas Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Cunningham dribbles whilst Kenny Dalglish (#7) and Ray Kennedy move in Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Real goalkeeper Agustin Rodriguez gets airborne Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Alan Kennedy, with his still-healing broken wrist strapped, scores with eight minutes of the game remaining Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Kennedy celebrates in front of the Liverpool fans with Johnson Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Kennedy celebrates the winning goal with Johnson and McDermott Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 The Liverpool team swamp the goalscorer Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Captain Thompson lifts the trophy Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Liverpool make their way back to the pitch after collecting their medals Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Goalscorer Alan Kennedy with the trophy Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Goalscorer Alan Kennedy with the trophy Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Manager Bob Paisley lifts the European Cup, for the third time Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Liverpool’s Scottish trio - Souness, Dalglish and Hansen - celebrate Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 David Johnson salutes the travelling supporters Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Alan Kennedy Colorsport / Andrew Cowie Liverpool vs Real Madrid, 1981 European final - in pictures 1981 European Cup Final - Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 Phil Neal joins the goalscorer to parade the trophy Colorsport / Andrew Cowie

Sure, many might scoff at the idea of a big-budget, big-six club like Liverpool being spoken of in such a way, but all performance is relative. Klopp is not competing against the rest of the Premier League here. He is competing against the absolute top end of the Champions League. This is also about much more than mere financial figures, too. It’s about profile, and where the players were.

A proper review of his squad before Klopp got to them reveals perhaps the most makeshift group to reach the final of the competition in the modern era, certainly one ragged enough to match anything put out by Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid.

The word from Real Madrid is that key figures at the Bernabeu think along those lines. They think they’ll win easily, because they have not come up against a squad as limited as this in one of this era’s finals. Former manager Vicente Del Bosque’s prediction of a 4-1 victory gave this away. The feeling at Real is that you probably have to go back to Del Bosque’s last final, the 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen in 2002, for an opposition squad as unimpressive as this. That was when the concept of a super-club didn’t quite exist, though, so similar opportunities for victory like Real think they have now should not exist in the final any more.

Real Madrid are bidding for a third straight Champions League (Getty)

And how could they not think along those lines, if they have indeed done that proper review of the Liverpool squad?

These are just not the star signings, or polished academy players, that the super-clubs have made the source of so many latter-stage appearances.

Andy Robertson’s story has attracted the most attention, but that’s partly because it brings together the most strands that are distinctive to this squad, and display the relatively improvisational way it has been put together in super-club terms.

To begin at the bottom, literally, Robertson is one of two regular starters along with Georginio Wijnaldum to be bought immediately after suffering relegation. These just aren’t the waters that Real Madrid or Barcelona or Bayern Munich fish in.

Robertson is also one of five players regularly used who were either signed for a meagre fee, or just on a free, including Loris Karius, Ragnar Klavan, James Milner and Alberto Moreno.

There are then at least two of the more expensive players who initially had people at their former clubs both privately and publicly commenting that Liverpool had paid too much. This was the case with Roberto Firmino and - yes - Mohamed Salah, while similar arguments were made elsewhere about Sadio Mane, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and even Van Dijk.

Liverpool's player don't quite hold the same reputation as their opponents (Getty)

Most impressively, the now universally admired Salah is far from unique in this squad as a player who had to overcome doubts, who has faced deep criticism and set-backs, who was either considered not good enough for the level or just past it altogether. That also applies to Karius, Lovren, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Moreno, Robertson, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Milner. Even Jordan Henderson. This is perhaps the most special part of the feat.

More specifically from a coaching perspective, there were then those players who just represented a puzzle as to where to actually play them, like Firmino, Milner and Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Klopp gradually figured out exactly where to play them, but he also had the inherent ability to get them to really play.

One of the manager’s great qualities is how he can connect with his players, and a deeper positive to this is that their backgrounds and consequent performances have brought a deeper connection with the support, further firing both. It could be seen in the joyous scenes at the final whistle in Rome, as could the truth of the words of the man who gave Klopp his own big break.

ZDF editor Jan Doehling felt in 2006 that the little-known second-tier Mainz coach would be ideal for German TV audiences looking to re-establish their own connection to the game ahead of that summer’s World Cup, because of the down-to-earth Klopp spoke.

“We realised that this guy knew how to put his point across and to mesmerise people,” Doehling told Raphael Honigstein for the book ‘Das Reboot’. “If he had started a political party, they would have voted him into government immediately.”

Klopp has helped create a party atmosphere for Liverpool supporters, having so quickly got them back into European football’s most prestigious stage. Part of that also came from a much lower moment, after the 2016 Europa League final defeat to Sevilla, as Henderson this week explained.

“He had this sort of vision that makes me think in the future we’d get to another final. He was confident and he wanted to use the experience of that final to keep us together and use it as a positive.”

Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Show all 14 1 /14 Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Play-offs First leg: Hoffenheim 1-2 Liverpool (Uth 87; Alexander-Arnold 35, Nordtveit 74og) Liverpool FC via Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Play-offs Second leg: Liverpool 4-2 Hoffenheim (Can 10, 21, Salah 18, Firmino 63; Uth 28, Wagner 79) AFP/Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Group stages: Matchday one Liverpool 2-2 Sevilla (Firmino 21, Salah 37; Ben Yedder 5, Correa 72) AFP/Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Group stages: Matchday two Spartak Moskva 1-1 Liverpool (Fernando 23; Coutinho 31) AFP/Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Group stages: Matchday three Maribor 0-7 Liverpool (Firmino 4, 54, Coutinho 13, Salah 19, 40, Oxlade-Chamberlain 86, Alexander-Arnold 90) AFP/Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Group stages: Matchday four Liverpool 3-0 Maribor (Salah 49, Can 64, Sturridge 90) Liverpool FC via Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Group stages: Matchday five Sevilla 3-3 Liverpool (Ben Yedder 51, 60pen, Pizarro 90+3; Firmino 2, 30, Mané 22) Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Group stages: Matchday six Liverpool 7-0 Spartak Moskva (Coutinho 4pen, 15 50, Firmino 19, Mané 47, 76, Salah 86) Liverpool FC via Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Round of 16: First leg Porto 0-5 Liverpool (Mané 25, 53, 85, Salah 29, Firmino 69) Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Round of 16: Second leg Liverpool 0-0 Porto Liverpool FC via Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Quarter-finals: First leg Liverpool 3-0 Manchester City (Salah 12, Oxlade-Chamberlain 21, Mané 31) Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Quarter-finals: Second leg Manchester City 1-2 Liverpool (Jesus 2; Salah 56, Firmino 81) Liverpool FC via Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Semi-finals: First leg Liverpool 5-2 Roma (Salah 36, 45+1, Mané 56, Firmino 61, 69; Džeko 81, Perotti 85pen) Getty Images Liverpool's route to the Champions League final Semi-finals: Second leg Roma 4-2 Liverpool (Milner 15og, Džeko 52, Nainggolan 86, 90+4pen; Mané 9, Wijnaldum 25) Liverpool FC via Getty Images

That is a hugely powerful mindset, especially when combined with hugely potent and clear tactics. Klopp does not just know how to get such players to run, and far and hard, but also running for the right reasons and in the right directions.

There is a wider argument over whether his approach would be suited to the real star players at the real big super-clubs, but that is not important right now. What is important is that Klopp has given his current players the chance to beat those star players and this biggest of super-clubs on the biggest occasions.