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Klopp previews Liverpool’s Champions League tie against Real Madrid

All eyes are turning to the return of Champions League football tonight after another rip-roaring weekend of Premier League action, with Liverpool set to face Real Madrid in a mouthwatering last-16 first-leg clash at Anfield later this evening. The Reds were beaten by their Spanish counterparts in last year’s final and will be out for revenge in front of their own fans tonight as they look to secure an early advantage heading into next month’s decisive second-leg meeting at the Bernabeu.

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The Merseyside giants could welcome Darwin Nunez back to their squad for the visit of Real Madrid after Jurgen Klopp hinted that the forward may be ready to feature in this evening’s match following a knock against Newcastle United over the weekend. The Liverpool boss told reporters: “There’s a chance. From all the possible scenarios, apart from being absolutely nothing, that’s not the case. We have to see how he can deal with the pain [and] when we know that, we make a decision.”

Manchester United , meanwhile, are currently in the process of finding new owners after a number of formal bids were submitted on Friday and further discussions have reportedly been taking place over the last few days as the situation develops. There is also plenty going on at Stamford Bridge as Chelsea mull over what to do with Graham Potter, who has endured a turbulent time of things since taking over from Thomas Tuchel earlier this season and was booed by fans after Saturday’s home defeat at the hands of Southampton.

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(Image: GETTY)

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta reviews the Crystal Palace win

Arsenal director Edu is keen on bringing Barcelona starlet Ilias Akhomach to the Emirates Stadium on a free transfer at the end of the season, according to reports. The Gunners have emerged as one of the Premier League’s best-run clubs in terms of player recruitment over the last few years and it seems as though Edu could be about to pull off another masterclass by landing Akhomach without having to pay a transfer fee.

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The 18-year-old has excelled at youth level for Barcelona this season and is also making a name for himself on the international scene with Spain after receiving a call-up to their under-19 squad earlier this month. Akhomach’s performances for club and country have not gone unnoticed in recent months, with Arsenal now said to be planning a move for his signature when the campaign draws to a close. Sport , who are reporting that Edu has already kickstarted talks with Akhomach’s representatives over the possibility of making the switch to England later this year. The teenage winger will be out of contract at the end of the season and is thought to have decided against signing an extension to his current deal, which means that he will be leaving the Nou Camp for a new club in the summer.

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Arsenal director Edu is believed to be chasing a move for Barcelona starlet Ilias Akhomach (Image: GETTY)

Barcelona will also be looking to protect their own interests ahead of Akhomach’s imminent departure by demanding a percentage of any future sale, although it remains unclear how the situation will play out as he nears the expiry of his contract in June.

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The teenage winger is also being watched by three other clubs including Leeds United (Image: GETTY)

Arsenal could emerge as an attractive destination for Akhomach given their success in helping the likes of Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and William Saliba to develop into hugely important first-team assets in recent years. They are still believed to be in the hunt for a new young winger after missing out on the signing of Mykhaylo Mudryk in January and it seems as though Akhomach might just be the right fit as a result of his playing characteristics and his sky-high ceiling for potential growth.

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Gregg Berhalter was the man in charge of the team representing the planet’s most powerful nation at its greatest sporting event five months ago, although his career is testament to the fact that in football much can change rapidly.

The head coach of the United States’ men’s national team [USMNT] at the Qatar World Cup finals, is in England this month to watch some games and explore the future. It was not long ago that he would have anticipated approaching a home World Cup final in 2026 in the same job, although nothing is now quite as certain. What has happened since his team were beaten by Holland in the last 16 on December 3 has threatened to eclipse everything.

That is naturally a frustration to Berhalter, 49, a man who has been compelled of late to discuss in public the private events of a sensitive nature from more than 30 years earlier as the saga has unfolded. “The only way to describe it is sad,” he says when we meet at a hotel in London. “It is unfortunate that this is the world we live in.

“I think it diverted a lot of attention away from a strong performance at the World Cup. It diverted a lot of attention away from how good the team is and how strong it was. Team mentality. The guys were amazing at the World Cup. So focussed, so disciplined and for a young team it was really incredible to see from a coaching standpoint.”

He is choosing to speak now because an investigation by his one-time employer, the US Soccer Federation [USSF] has declared him a suitable person to re-apply for his former job. His contract with the USSF expired at the end of last year and since then this tale has gathered pace. The series of events that brought him here is not straightforward.

For the details that span 30 years, the families of the Berhalters and the Reynas – Claudio, Danielle and one of their children, current Borussia Dortmund and USMNT midfielder, Gio – you will have to consult this timeline. Friendships, fallouts and a fleeting moment on a boozy night out in 1992, it can feel like fodder for the great American novel (and requires almost as many words to explain). At the start of this year when Berhalter and his wife Rosalind released a statement detailing an incident from 1992 when the pair were 18 and, during an argument outside a bar, Gregg had responded to being hit in the face by his then girlfriend by kicking her.

‘The only way to describe it is sad’

“Zero excuses”, Berhalter said of his behaviour in the statement, for which he had self-reported at the time, and sought counselling. The couple, who have been married 25 years and have four children, did so, they said, because they were being threatened with revelation. Subsequently, Danielle, a college friend of Rosalind, would reveal that she raised the 1992 incident with USSF officials in December amid complaints about Berhalter’s treatment of Gio.

Hence the independent investigation commissioned by the USSF into Berhalter, and the Reynas. The report was unequivocal on Berhalter: the 1992 incident was a one-off for which he had taken responsibility. It was less easy reading for the Reynas. Both had refused to be interviewed by the investigation’s lawyers. The report painted a picture of Claudio as a truculent soccer dad. There were accounts of angry texts he sent to USSF coaches over Gio’s treatment. He lobbied privately for his son to have a red card rescinded. Reyna’s agent says the report is “grossly unfair”.

Berhalter has another view of the saga. “The only way to describe it is sad,” he says when we meet at a hotel in London. “It is unfortunate that this is the world we live in. I think it diverted a lot of attention away from a strong performance at the World Cup. It diverted a lot of attention away from how good the team is and how strong it was. Team mentality. The guys were amazing at the World Cup. So focussed, so disciplined and for a young team it was really incredible to see from a coaching standpoint.”

He is proud of his record. A member of the 2002 World Cup squad that reached the quarter-finals, Berhalter took the current USMNT up 12 places to 13th in the Fifa rankings. He equalled the team’s best-ever World Cup group points total and set a USMNT record of two clean sheets. His 74 per cent win rate is the highest in history for a USMNT coach. “A lot of good milestones,” Berhalter says. Then came the Reyna affair.

“It was difficult,” Berhalter says. “After getting eliminated from the World Cup you want to enjoy some vacation and get rid of everything and then this comes up. It hangs over during the holidays. We didn’t get the mental break. Then a couple of weeks after everything came out, me and my wife were walking down the street and we started to see positives in it.

“That’s the way we look at the world. We try to find positives in things. We feel like we are a really good example to our children. To say, ‘Okay, this is how Mom and Dad handled something like this’. They are proud of us. Our children are 21, 19, 15 and nine. They can understand stuff. That was good. The amount of support I get from individuals and people reaching out. Me and my wife. So all that has been really positive. That has helped.”

‘We weren’t going to let something that we dealt with decades ago hurt us again’

The statement the pair released meant that they took control. “I spoke to my wife and the beauty of it is we have people who have known us our whole relationship and have been there the whole relationship. We weren’t going to let something that happened when we were 18 years old – that we dealt with when we were 18 years old – hurt us again. We have learned so much from that experience. And that made us better people and helped us have a better relationship. We weren’t going to hide from it because it did actually help us.

“The other thing we are telling our kids is that everything is in line with our values of who we are as people. We are honest people and we approach the world that way. It was in line with how we act.”

On the difficult subject of the Reynas, with whom the connection goes back to childhood in the case of Gregg and Claudio, he says this: “I would just say it’s a sad situation. We are talking about people you have known for over three decades. It’s sad and it’s in some way traumatic. But it’s something you have to deal with.”

He is positive about the future, and he is now clear to reapply for the US job which is evidently a matter of great personal significance. What happens is anyone’s guess. The next USSF sporting director to succeed Berhalter’s former team-mate Earnie Stewart will make that decision. Currently the team approaches this month’s games under Berhalter’s former assistant, the English coach Anthony Hudson.

“I guess what it [the USSF report] does is it means there are options,” Berhalter says. “That I would still be in consideration – nothing is going to exclude me from being part of that process and there are other processes that are happening also. After the work that has been done, that is what is right. Whether it is offered or not – or I take it or not – that’s a completely different story. To not be part of the process would be difficult. Because of the achievements of the team and how much the team has grown over the last four years.”

He has been around Europe in recent weeks, including a visit to Real Madrid. It will be tempting for English football to focus on the otherness of the native US football coach but Berhalter has played in more European countries than the vast majority of English players. He speaks German, Dutch and Spanish. He gained his Uefa A and B licenses in Germany. Later he was part of the successful Los Angeles Galaxy side as a team-mate of David Beckham.

Before the USMNT he had five years at Columbus Crew working with a considerably smaller budget than other MLS rivals, and reached the end of season play-offs four times including one MLS final.

‘We can’t make blanket statements about American coaches based on Marsch’

English football has proven a tough frontier for US coaches. Only Jesse Marsch, Bob Bradley and the German-born former USMNT international David Wagner, now at Norwich City, have managed in the division – with limited success. There is now the added spectre of Ted Lasso comparisons which Marsch approached with good humour upon his short-lived appointment at Leeds United.

“What I would say is, it is too small a sample size,” Berhalter says. “We just can’t make blanket statements about American coaches based on two coaches. That’s the way to look at it. Everyone has a unique quality. I could see if it had been 100 US coaches and you had more data. If I was trying to figure how, say, players from Poland perform in England and only looked at two cases, I wouldn’t be doing my job very well. Everyone has a different upbringing and a different culture.”

He has a point. He played for three clubs in Holland including Sparta Rotterdam. His year at Palace was typical of the club in that era, a Championship battle under Steve Bruce and then Trevor Francis. He was captain at Energie Cottbus where the training leant on old East German principles of running, gymnastics and liberal use of the medicine ball. He was captain again at 1860 Munich. After being sacked in 2013 from his first coaching job at Hammarby IF, in Stockholm, he travelled around European clubs gleaning knowledge.

“A good measuring stick was the World Cup [game against England],” he says.” When you looked at the two teams play it looked like a game at a high level. And like any heavyweight fight one team gets the upper hand and then the other team. That’s how it should go. That’s how it looked. It wasn’t one-way traffic. I think that has a lot to do with our player pool. It’s grown over the last four years and matured. They believe that they can do it.”

Like his players, he would just like the chance to be judged on his own ability, not the nationality or indeed the disclosures that have flowed after the World Cup finals. “I understand that the federation was obliged to look into this matter,” he says, “and now that it’s concluded it can be used as an example of the process working.”