What did Jurgen Klopp say?
While speaking to BT Sport, the Liverpool boss said, “It’s not bad to get to the final, it’s kind of a success although not the success you want to have.”
“I have a strong feeling we will come again. The boys are really competitive and are an outstanding group – they will be that again next season. And we go again. Where’s it next season? Istanbul? Book the hotel!”
He further added, “The mood in the dressing room makes it feel like not a great season in this moment – we’ll need a few minutes or hours for that,”
“We played a good, not a perfect game. A perfect game wouldn’t have been possible with how the opponent set up with the deep formation, counter-attacks and long balls – that was tricky. Like the disallowed goal in the first half was a long ball that we couldn’t defend in the first place. We had a lot of shots but not the clearest – only three forced Courtois into top saves.
“We conceded a goal from a throw-in. (Federico) Valverde wanted to shoot, Vinicius was there and that’s it.
“The boys tried everything, especially at 1-0 down then we played like we wanted to play before. We had our midfielders too deep. It’s a threat they are with counter-attacks. We wanted to be more brave in the second half. That’s what we said at half-time. We played around them. We should have played more in the formation than around them.”
“And tomorrow, we will celebrate the season,”
“It’s good that we don’t have to do that now immediately. But after a night’s sleep and maybe another talk or speech from me, the boys will realise how special it was what they did. Even if nobody on this planet would understand that we have a parade tomorrow, we still will do it and I really hope that everybody who has the chance to get to Liverpool is there tomorrow and celebrates together with us a fantastic season which we all had together. It didn’t end like we wanted but yeah, that’s facts.
“But, how I said, the club is in a good moment, we will go again.”
Robertson also spoke to BT Sport
Liverpool’s left-back, [player 1078] said, “Obviously it (the dressing room) is quiet, devastated – that’s what happens when you come to finals and lose.
“We had chances, we came up against an unbelievable goalie tonight, he pulled off some unbelievable saves.
“But if we’re being honest as well, I think we could have played a bit better, especially second half. I thought first half we played well, we were in control, we were the one’s kind of pushing. Second half, we didn’t start great, they started getting a hold of the game a bit more.
“When you come up against an experienced team, they know how to win finals. Once they got their noses in front, they showed that.”
Liverpool dominated, but Real Madrid won!
Coming into the game, [team 8] were heavy favourites to win the final and [player 31857]’s name on the lineup increased their chances of winning. [coach 455353]’s side started the game with high intensity and pegged [team 3468] back. It was the start that Klopp would have wanted, but the reds failed to get on the scoresheet.
Liverpool had 24 shots with 9 on target, while Real Madrid had 2 on target out of 4. Liverpool dominated for the majority of the game, but the end product wasn’t good enough. When the shots were good, [player 1314]’s saves were terrific. The Belgian shot-stopper’s performance was one of the best final performances ever.
Carlo Ancelotti’s tactics were superb. Generally, Liverpool’s opponents just play on counter-attacks to expose their high line. However, [coach 455800] did it in a different but excellent way.
Instead of playing on quick transitions, Real Madrid focused on waiting for the right opportunity to get the ball forward. They created overloads in the wide areas by using the inverted positioning of [player 600687] and [player 260862].
[player 268] and [player 30289] were consistently dropping deep to receive the ball, and the full-backs were pushing higher. As Valverde and Vinicius came inside, it left huge spaces for [player 31647] and [player 98903] to run into. These movements created confusion among Liverpool’s players and disrupted their pressing.
As soon as the chance came, Modric and Kroos played the balls into the wings. The duo played plenty of long balls as Real Madrid bypassed Liverpool’s press through long balls. Modric played 5 long balls while Kroos played 8 as their partnership was once again pivotal in Real Madrid’s yet another [league 2] triumph.
Author: Devashish Akolekar
