John McGovern respect for Andy Robertson is such he believes he’d have had the seal of approval from the late, great Brian Clough.
But the twice European Cup winner has warned his fellow Scot than nothing less than back-to-back Champions League wins will be enough to be compared alongside the double European Cup-winning Reds of the late ‘70s glory days.
The midfield brain of Clough’s Nottingham Forest side which lifted the European Cup against Malmo in 1979 and Hamburg the following year is a huge fan of the Scotland skipper who will line up against Real Madrid in Paris this Saturday to try to claim the biggest prize in club football.
McGovern’s own European adventures are a story of melancholy in the moment of his greatest success and he’s tipped Robertson to join him in a select band of players who’ve lifted the trophy twice.
He said: “Once you win the trophy you want to win it again and at Forest we were labelled a flash in the pan.
“It remains to be proved if this Liverpool can compare to the one I played against as they need to hold that Champions League trophy for two years in a row.
“They are capable of doing that as they have so much quality within their side and Robertson is a big part of that.
“He’s a Clough type of player, he would have loved him, he’s an attacking thinking player.
“You don’t get any more positive as a full-back than him as his first thought is always to get forward and I’m sure he loves doing that more than defending.
“Liverpool also have a manager the players trust just as we did under Clough. He would put in place a system which allowed players to get forward and Clough had me as defensive midfielder and told me if he ever caught me up in attack with the forwards then he’d fine me.
“Jurgen Klopp has his players in a disciplined system and Robertson gets a licence to get down the wing and deliver into the box, he’s a terrific attacking weapon.
“When you have faith in what a manager asks you to do then you can put your own play into practice and Robertson has revelled in working under Klopp.”
When asked to compare the current quality at elite level to what was produced back in his day, he quipped: “Back then it was the old First Division, if you won that then you went into the real Champions League where you had to be champions of your country. That’s no longer the case.
“I remember when we were in the Forest dressing room and sitting around a radio listening to the European Cup draw and some of the boys were saying, ‘I want to go to Paris’, ‘I want to go to Germany’, ‘I want to go to Holland’.
“We drew Liverpool so never even made it out of the country. They were European champs and one of the best teams in the world just as they are now. Nobody gave us any chance.
“We won the first game at home and I remember Emlyn Hughes telling us 1-0 wasn’t enough to go to Anfield with so we scored a second and I asked him if two was enough?
“We made it through that first round and went on to win it at the first time of trying.”
McGovern’s first taste of European success was also a time to recall a traumatic event of his youth and the yearning for a father whose life was lost in tragic circumstances.
He said: “My dad died when I was 11. He’d been working in Ghana on a project building a dam which was an important thing in Africa. He couldn’t take holidays until it was done so I never saw him for two years.
“On that last day of his work he was on a bus to catch a flight home; he was killed in a crash. He was so keen to get home he stood next to the driver and a car pulled out in front of them out of nowhere and he went through the windscreen.
“Like most sons, I loved my dad and that was why I wasn’t smiling when I first lifted up the European Cup.
“A vision of my dad came into my mind at that moment and I just wished he was there to see it as it would have made him proud. Call it a moment of mushy sentiment but it was him and for my mum.”
The Robertson factor is just one of the reasons McGovern will be rooting for Liverpool in the Stade de France.
He said: “I used to worship Liverpool, they were a terrific side full of Scots players and I was partisan, I want Liverpool to win, I’d want any English side playing in a European final to win.
“I also like to see a side based around entertainment and attacking style succeed.
“They also have a Scot in their ranks so that adds to the desire to see them and Robertson doing well as he’s one world class player in a team of world class performers so I’ll have my Liverpool hat on.”
