GRAEME SOUNESS: I won the European Cup at Wembley and went to celebrate with my landlady... but she wasn't pleased to be woken up at 3am and went back to bed!

Winning a European Cup at Wembley gave me one of the most special nights of my life.

I’d watched Liverpool claim the trophy the year before, in 1977, on TV in, of all places, a German working men’s club in Wollongong, New South Wales, while touring Australia with Middlesbrough. Liverpool had beaten Borussia Monchengladbach so we weren’t very popular with the German clientele as we cheered for an English win.

Nearly a year later, I was part of that Liverpool team and found myself heading to Wembley as we looked to retain the trophy against Bruges.

Even though it was the European Cup final, I didn’t have nerves. I was always a confident person and at Liverpool I was feeding off the experience of the older players. They had incredible belief and Bruges were frightened of us. They just didn’t want to take us on.

Much stock had been put on the game being at Wembley with home advantage for us. But it was the Liverpool way to treat it as just another away game in London and travel down to our regular stopover in Hertfordshire the day before the final.

Liverpool’s management would laugh at other teams when they went off to a Wembley final and spent three or four days before the game in a hotel. Their view was we were far better off staying in our own beds, with our own pillows for as much settled sleep as you could get, and not eating too much hotel food.

Even in the dressing room beforehand, there was never any talk of ‘they are really good, watch out for this or that...’ There were no tub-thumping speeches. It was just Ronnie Moran and Joe Fagan walking round the room offering little pearls of wisdom to each player, blowing in your ear almost with reminders about your job on the night.

The way Bruges set up ensured the game itself was a dull affair. All the finals I played in were attritional games because everyone was scared of making a mistake. Ideally you wanted an early goal but we had to wait until the 64th minute.

I get asked a lot about my pass for Kenny Dalglish’s winning goal. I remember the ball coming out of the sky and I chested it down but could see two players coming to challenge me. I thought ‘I’m going to get smacked here,’ so I just wanted to make sure I got a decent contact on the ball and fortunately for me the pass was just perfectly angled and perfectly weighted for Kenny to do the hard work. Nine times out of ten in a one-on one-with the goalkeeper he would finish and he didn’t let us down.

As soon as it went in, the roar went up from the 85,000 Liverpool fans in the stadium and we all started hurdling the advertising hoardings chasing Kenny to celebrate. It was just a special, special feeling.

It is such a thrill to go up the Wembley steps for any final. It’s an incredible feeling, but to go up and lift the trophy with the big ears is something I will always remember.

The party afterwards at a Swiss Cottage hotel was equally memorable. After celebrating with my teammates, I decided at 3am to jump into a taxi with a bottle of champagne and my medal before heading to the Marble Arch Holiday Inn. That was where my mum and dad were staying and my old landlady from my digs in Middlesbrough, Phoebe, who I’d invited down for the game.

I was a little worse for wear at that stage though and got reception to wake them up but they weren’t best pleased!

I wanted to celebrate with them, drink champagne and talk about the night but I was met with: ‘Very good, son, but let’s talk in the morning. We’re going back to bed.’ So I got back in a taxi to Swiss Cottage to carry on at the club’s party. I know they were still proud though. Phoebe was a very special lady so it was important to me she was there.

She looked after me for five years at Middlesbrough. I got away with murder sometimes and it mustn’t have been easy. She made fantastic coffee cake.

If I came in late from a night out, she would leave a glass of milk, a sandwich, and a slice of cake on the table, each protected in polythene, to make sure I was okay.

I decided one day, in a fit of independence, to buy a flat in Saltburn. ‘This is what you do as a grown up.’ So I packed my bags and left Phoebe and went to my new home.

I did not last an hour there, as, after unpacking my bags, I realised I’d made one almighty mistake leaving all the family comforts of Phoebe’s house.

I was sat there thinking: ‘What am I doing here?’ I miss my afternoon tea, I miss my cake and miss being treated like a long lost son.

In fact I was so happy at Middlesbrough, largely thanks to her, that when I was told they had accepted an offer to sell me, I’d decided if it was from Leeds United or Manchester City, who were interested, I was going to stay. Only Liverpool, then European champions, turned my head.

It meant a lot she was there that night at Wembley with my parents. This game can give you very special memories.

Cool Carlo is the maestro of adaptability 

Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund weren’t even the best two teams in the Champions League this season but they found a way to win.

I spoke last week about managers needing to be more flexible and compromising principles to win games and there are few better examples than Carlo Ancelotti.

If Real Madrid had lost to Manchester City in the quarter-final then you even wonder whether he would have kept his job because it is Real Madrid we are talking about after all who have to play in a certain way and, as we’ve seen before, winning La Liga isn’t always enough.

His team have flair and guile but they could not cope with Manchester City’s press at the Etihad and instead of being a side that played out from the back they resorted to a back-to-front long-ball game.

What was admirable that night was there was no reluctance to do the hard yards from those flair players.

They had to show pragmatism and Ancelotti was more than happy to change his tactics to save the tie.

He is a great example to the modern coach.

There are many intriguing stories waiting to unfold, great players like Marco Reus, Mats Hummels, Toni Kroos and Luka Modric all looking to make perhaps a final impression. Jadon Sancho must believe he has a point to prove in front of a British audience, and what else can we say about Jude Bellingham? I’m not sure I can remember someone making such an incredible impact in their first year at a club, let alone Real Madrid. But Dortmund know him well so he won’t offer any surprises to them.

I’m leaning towards Real Madrid but it’s a hard one to call. We have two sides who have great experience but I believe they are below top Premier League standard at the moment.

City’s players will be at home watching this game on TV with one eye closed because they know they really should be in the final.

I won’t be at Wembley to watch the final this evening as I will be otherwise engaged. I’ll be taking my beautiful young wife out to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary...

Kompany to Bayern is stranger than fiction 

It's been an eventful few days on the managerial merry-go-round. There’s no stranger story than Vincent Kompany being appointed head coach at Bayern Munich after relegation with Burnley while Enzo Maresca gets a five-year contract at Chelsea on the back of one good season with Leicester City. 

You have to think that if he can’t finish fourth and earn Champions League football, he will be going the same way as Mauricio Pochettino.

We also await news from Manchester United. After winning the FA Cup, there’s talk of a season review. That in football terms should be an afternoon’s work. So to go on this long, I believe the signs are ominous for Erik ten Hag.