Rodrygo revealed how Real Madrid used Mohamed Salah as a motivator before the Champions League final last month, the match that ended with “Los Blancos” winning against Liverpool with a goal without a response at the Stade de France, and lifting the Champions League for the 14th time.
In the run-up to the match, Salah talked about his desire to avenge his team’s 3-1 defeat against Real Madrid in the 2018 final, when he was injured when he clashed with Real Madrid star Sergio Ramos at the time.
Salah said: “I want to play against Madrid. This is personal. I personally prefer to face Madrid, instead of Manchester City, because we lost in the final, so I want to play against them and I hope to win.”
Mohamed Salah also moved to his Twitter account before the match and wrote, “We have a result that must be corrected,” according to the British newspaper, “The Sun”.
And it seems that Mohamed Salah’s comments backfired, as Real Madrid striker Rodrygo said that many of his teammates used those comments as motivation during training.
Speaking on a podcast, Rodrigo said: “When someone provokes you, sometimes you just want to win so you can make fun of them.”
He added, “In training, we used to say ‘Come Salah, come Salah.’ In our thinking it was already ‘We have to win to make fun of Salah’.”
He also revealed that Croatian Luka Modric rushed to search for Mohamed Salah after the final whistle.
He added: “When the match ended, the Liverpool players were passing in front of us, and Salah passed in front of us and looked a little sad, with his head down.. Modric looked at him and said to him, ‘Thank you Salah, next time you will try again’.. and I laughed.”
