Konate hopes Paris final will be a happy homecoming

IBRAHIMA KONATE is doing his best to listen but he is distracted. He is dealing with a series of questions but his eyes keep darting to his right, to huge picture on a wall.

We are sitting in a suite at Liverpool’s training centre. All around, there are powerful quotes and images from big victories to remind those who were involved what they achieved and to inspire new recruits about what is possible.

Konate, fittingly, is talking about dreams and aspirations but, every so often, his voice tails off and he stares at a projection of Jurgen Klopp, with his back to the camera, hoisting the European Cup above his head on Liverpool’s triumphant tour of their city in June 2019.

Written across it is a quote from Klopp: ‘By being together at all times, we will be stronger, better and our successes sweeter.’

Konate studies it, absorbing the words as if revising for an exam. He’s been on Merseyside less than a year but knows what this trophy means.

‘No, I can’t stop looking!’ says the France Under-21 international, who was born six miles from the Stade de France, where tomorrow’s final will be staged. ‘For this Champions League, we’re talking about games I watched on TV as a kid and grew up watching.

‘Even the final against Madrid (2018), when Liverpool lost, I watched on TV. It’s something that is already part of my history because I’ve seen it with my own eyes. So this is indescribable. I’ve not got the words to explain what winning huge trophies like this one would mean.

‘The club wants to show (again) they are part of football history and they want to go on demonstrating that year after year. So when I think about that motto of being together and having this history together, it is beyond words. It is beyond dreams.’

This season has gone better than Konate could have envisaged. He already has two trophies, having played in both the Carabao Cup and FA Cup triumphs, and his pace could be a key weapon in trying to keep Real Madrid at bay.

The stadium, though, adds another layer of romance to Konate’s story. He grew up in Paris, dreaming of one day emulating the Brazil striker Ronaldo as he kicked a sheet of newspaper scrunched up and wrapped in tape to make a ball around his district.

‘Like most young Parisians we couldn’t get to see football in proper stadiums, we didn’t have the money,’ says Konate, who signed for Liverpool from RB Leipzig for £36.5million. ‘We didn’t play on (proper) pitches. But we found ways to play whenever and wherever — even with paper!

‘We didn’t need much to be happy, we were happy playing in the streets. If it was a ball made out of foam or leather or plastic — it would keep us busy all day.

‘We’d play in the street, cages, me and my brothers, and that’s why we have these talents. Everyone knows that Paris is a “fish pond”: a lot of talent. I’ve been lucky enough to reach this level but it’s not the end. I’ve still got a lot of aims and goals.’

The immediate aim, of course, is helping Liverpool win their seventh European Cup. Such is the intensity that has been around their campaign, it is clear that every member of the squad will be required to lift themselves for one final push against the masters of the Champions League.

Again, Konate is looking towards Klopp and that picture. He laughs when it is pointed out that he has been fixated with it for the last 20 minutes but he then composes himself and explains why it is so captivating and what is at stake.

Konate is only 23 and was born the year after the greatest night in the Stade de France’s history, when his country won the 1998 World Cup there, but the feeling of helping Liverpool conquer Europe once more, he believes, would be comparable.

‘It’s definitely going to be the best moment of my life,’ Konate says. ‘I don’t have any children yet so I can’t be sure — but I think it will be the greatest moment. The Champions League final, in Paris, my home. If I tried I couldn’t have dreamt of anything better.

‘We have had so many big games before we could start thinking about it properly but it has come around really fast and we need to be ready. I hope that we’ll come home with the title. What a story — going to Paris and coming back here with that trophy for an incredible celebration.

‘This season has been exceptional, historic for the club, to be in a position to win each every title. I wasn’t expecting that. I am living my dream every day and it is just remarkable.’