With 20 Champions League titles between them, Liverpool versus Real Madrid is a meeting of two European football greats.

Their round-of-16 match at Anfield on Tuesday is also a repeat of last year’s final in Paris, which saw Madrid win the competition for a record-extending 14th time after producing a series of improbable comebacks just to make it to the European showpiece at the Stade de France.

“I still shake my head and scratch my head,” said former England coach and BT Sport analyst Glenn Hoddle.

“I covered every one of those games and I still don’t know how they won it. They were out.”

Madrid secured come-from-behind wins against PSG, Chelsea and Manchester City in each of the knockout rounds before beating Liverpool 1-0 in the final.

“They were like a boxer, they were up against the ropes and they were halfway down the ropes and you’re thinking the ref’s going to step in and stop the bout,” Hoddle said.

“I don’t know what happened, they just kept going. And they had that quality.”

Liverpool coach Juergen Klopp conceded that he had not been able to bring himself to rewatch the final defeat insisting reliving the experience was “torture”.

“Different things happened to us with Real Madrid,” Klopp told a news conference on Monday.

“One of the biggest clubs in the world, super experienced.

“Our own story, we played this final in Paris (last year). I didn’t watch it back until this weekend and I know why I didn’t watch it back now, it was proper torture.

“We played a good game and could’ve won the game. They scored a decisive goal and we didn’t. You could see how experienced Madrid is.”

Where the Champions League is concerned anything seems possible for Madrid, who won the trophy three years in a row from 2016- 18 at a time when Barcelona were dominating the Spanish title.

But if any team can rival Madrid’s ability to produce the unexpected in European club football’s most prized competition, it is Liverpool.

There was the famous comeback from 3-0 down against AC Milan in the 2005 final before going on to win on penalties. And more recently the 4-3 aggregate win against Barcelona in the semi-finals in 2019 after losing 3-0 in the first leg at the Nou Camp.

Madrid, however, have felt like a step too far ever since the draw was made last November.

After all, this is a Liverpool team that faces a fight just to qualify for next season’s competition, let alone win it this year.

Klopp has struggled to get his team firing after the departure of key forward Sadio Mane to Bayern Munich last summer and a host of injuries.

Ahead of the first-leg match at Anfield, Klopp can at least be encouraged by a recent upturn in form after back-to-back wins against Evertonand Newcastle in the PremierLeague and goals from misfiring forwards Cody Gakpo and Darwin Nunez.

Suddenly Liverpool look in contention again for a Champions League-qualifying spot, sitting seven points off fourth-placed Tottenham with two games in hand.