I wanted it to be a motivation to help United get back on the perch they once knocked Liverpool off.

But football is not like that. Fans see things differently from players, for one. United fans don’t “like” the picture of Liverpool players holding the European Cup as Alexis Sanchez did of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain after the game. Players don’t like it when fans accuse them of not trying – that’s the biggest slight against them, yet it felt like that was the attitude of some United players towards the end of a season which ended awfully and was topped off with Manchester City winning the league and Liverpool winning a sixth European Cup.

Short of the club being put out of existence, it can’t get any worse than that for a Manchester United fan.

Being a Mancunian of the red persuasion in Madrid on Saturday was not enjoyable. I was sent there to do a job as a journalist which I did to the best of my ability. The sun was shining and I was being paid to watch a European Cup final where I’d feel zero emotion. I was amused by the street seller in a Man United shirt, the self aggrandising of some of the Liverpool flags and felt sorry for people who had been scammed for tickets or travel.

I tried to stay dispassionate but you can’t help how you feel and I was envious at times, yet also thankful that I’ve seen the team I support win the real treble. Most football fans don’t see their team win anything. Newcastle United’s average home crowd is 51,000 and they’ve not won a trophy since 1969.

Football is cyclical and United – Manchester, if maybe not Newcastle – will rise again, but right now it seems as improbable as it would to Liverpool fans nine years ago when they appointed Roy Hodgson as manager after sacking Champions League winning manager Rafa Benitez.

Hodgson was as unpopular with Liverpool fans as Sam Allardyce was at Newcastle. Some things just don’t fit. Liverpool fans were divided then, their owners were cast as chancers and it hasn’t all been sweetness and light since.

As recently as 2015, Jamie Carragher told me he couldn’t see Liverpool winning major trophies any time soon. They’d fallen behind the winners and did even Jurgen Klopp, one of life’s optimists, really expect to reach consecutive Champions League finals?

Not that Klopp had it easy at first. There were moments, admittedly driven by clueless social media fans, to get rid of Liverpool’s owners who are now being rightly praised. And to even get rid of Klopp, though they were limited to the kind of clowns who ring talk shows and start their spiel: “I’ve not seen today’s game yet but he has to go.”

As the Liverpool focused journalist James Pearce tweeted: “The FSG out lads have gone quiet and haven’t heard a peep from the net spend boys.” Or those who slaughtered the man who is now a Champions League winning captain, Jordan Henderson. Fans of all clubs can be horrendously feckless and knee jerk in their reactions.

I’d be quite comfortable if Liverpool FC lost every game they played for the next 29 years, but they’ve done much right to become the ascendant force they are. And they’ve done it far better than United – the club which is closest to them when judged by success, size and fan base.

Liverpool haven’t needed a benefactor and they play good football. Their recruitment, pushed by American owners who realise that to grow their brand it has to come from success on the pitch, is exceptional, the timing flawless.

Their fans were disappointed after losing the 2018 final in Kiev, so the club announced the signing of Fabinho from Monaco when absolutely nobody was expecting it.

The Brazilian touched the ball less than any other Liverpool player in Madrid, but he shapes his team, he wins battles, he gives confidence to England’s best defence behind him.

Statistics don’t do every footballer justice. And Liverpool’s signings are also not made because of any potential commercial appeal.

But enough about Liverpool. I’m more worried that United are becoming what Liverpool became in the ’90s, a club which harks back to its historical achievements. Books on Liverpool in those days sold in far greater numbers than ones about United, perhaps since United had plenty to immerse themselves in the then-present.

Not now. United fans gloated for years just as Liverpool fans are doing right now. Supporting a football team is for life – fans have to take the current shambles on the chin, though they’re right to ask questions about why it’s like this, as to why such an expensively assembled team have been so bad.

That’s their right, especially when they can see so little light in the relatively gloomy tunnel United now find themselves in as Liverpool have their moment in the sun.