Usually players are coy about giving away too much when quizzed about potential opponents, but not Mohamed Salah.
When he was asked after Liverpool’s comeback against Villarreal to book their place in the Champions League Final on May 28 which team he wanted to play in Paris, he could not have been more definitive. Never mind the desire in this country for another all-England final against Manchester City and the prestige that would have earned the Premier League, he wanted Real Madrid.
And the reason is obvious, he wants revenge for 2018. As agonising as it was for Liverpool to lose the Premier League title race to City by a point in 2019 after being so brilliant, the 2018 Champions League Final remains an open wound for Salah.
His dream of crowning a phenomenal season when he scored a total of 44 goals, including 11 in Liverpool’s march to Kiev, ended in tears with defeat and THAT challenge by Sergio Ramos.
Ramos knew Salah was Liverpool’s dangerman and this master of the dark arts made sure he would not hurt Real.
His judo throw, which put Salah out of the match with a shoulder injury after just 30 minutes with the Final goalless, remains one of the most infamous challenges in football.
Little wonder then that Salah, who has 30 goals this season and who will receive the FWA Player of the Year award for a second time on Thursday night in London, wanted Real.
As professional as Salah is, he’s also human and he wants to atone for that low.
No-one can turn the clock back to 2018 and Kiev is gone.
But beating Real to win a seventh Champions League for Liverpool - and a second in three years - would go a long way to exorcising those demons for Salah.
Straight after Real's sensational comeback win over City he tweeted: "We have a score to settle."
Jurgen Klopp and every other Liverpool player who survives from that night will also feel they have unfinished business with Real.
The Reds never really showed their true class against Real and were fatally undermined by Loris Karius’ two howlers.
Alisson is a massive upgrade on the hapless German, who gifted Real two goals in their 3-1 win, and Liverpool are better all over the pitch and on the bench four years on.
They have also added Ibrahima Konate in defence, Fabinho and Thiago in midfield and the talents of Diego Jota and Luis Diaz up front.
They are also more experienced and while their run to the 2018 Final was an incredible ride, City were undoubted the best team in England.
Now that accolade belongs to Liverpool because of what they have achieved this season and they have been consistently brilliant.
Privately, Salah and his Liverpool team-mates may be relieved that they do not have to face City a fourth time this season because games between them have been so difficult.
Real are fresh opponents and Liverpool fans have not forgotten their defeat to them behind closed doors in last season’s quarter-finals when the Reds were struggling for form.
Kopites of a superstitious nature may be worried, though, and Liverpool have only lost to Madrid teams in the Champions League under Klopp - twice to Madrid and once to Atletico.
Liverpool are determined to end that hoodoo and they remain on course for an unprecedented quadruple.
Even writing that sentence sounds bonkers because no English side has ever got as close as they have to achieving that historic feat.
Beating Real in Paris - just as they did in the 1981 European Cup Final when Alan Kennedy was their unlikely goalscoring hero - could crown that achievement.
And it would also be sweet revenge for 2018.
