Thursday 15 April 2021
“… but we’re outside.”
Klopp just scolds himself
Liverpool have a chance to perform a little miracle in the Champions League against Real Madrid. But coach Jürgen Klopp’s team failed. Also because Klopp made the wrong decision. Klopp says.
They could really do it, the next miracle at Anfield. But Liverpool FC does Not this time to throw off the heavy mortgage he brought home from Spain in the Champions League. Unlike the big match, mascara 4-0 (after 3-0 in the first leg) against FC Barcelona 2019, you couldn’t score in 0-0 against Real Madrid.
So I stayed 1: 3 from the first leg and the Champions League winners in the last two years were already knocked out in the quarter-finals. Bayern and Liverpool share a sad common fate. Both failed due to lack of competence. And at the very least, Liverpool FC was also the wrong decision by their coach. At least that’s what the coach says.
“We wanted new legs,” Klopp said, justifying an offensive double change exactly an hour later when he brought in Thiago and Diogo Jota in place of James Milner and defender Ozan Kabak. “But since then we haven’t progressed well. Maybe the timing changes were not quite right,” the coach admitted. The self-criticism his squad could have saved, because when Anfield missed, it was “generally good, sometimes really good,” Klopp praised. “We didn’t lose the duel today.”
“… but we’re outside.”
The coach of the English team had promised before the match, saying: “If we realize that it is possible, then we will have a chance.” And the Reds were really on their feet to move forward. Chance after chance was made especially in the first half, but striker Mohamed Salah in particular miraculously missed even the best chances. Klopp said, “If I take advantage of one of these opportunities,” for example the opportunity for Mohamed Salah after a little less than two minutes, “then the match will open.” “We know how many times Mo closes these things with his eyes closed. Not here. It was very good tonight, but we are out.”
The performance by the crisis-torn Liverpool side, which has been fighting hard for new Champions League qualification in the Premier League, has been really good. The relationship between expenses and income has been almost historical – but in an unlikely way: Liverpool have fired 13 times from inside the box against Real, and have often tried so at Anfield Road in the Champions League so far only in 2006 without success.
The goal, the opening match, did not come – “Then Real Madrid played down the importance of the draw with all its experience,” Klopp told the BBC, half of the match surrendered, half of which is my appreciation. At the Royal Camp, who returned to the semi-finals after a disappointing early exit in the last 16 of the Champions League, they took a deep breath after a long, exhausting evening. Sky’s Tony Crosse said, “That was definitely hard work, it wasn’t a Sovereign today. Maybe the Sovereign was in the first leg.” The national player, who starred a week ago in Madrid, has not developed all this time under the intense pressure of the English. But in the end, he was allowed to express his joy. He turned his team’s first Champions League 0-0 in five years.
“We rode the storm”
Real coach Zinedine Zidane found poetic words for the evening: “We knew we had to suffer tonight, but in the end we got what we wanted, which was success. I think we mastered the game well, we managed to beat the storm and we can“ be proud of our performance ” The relaxed French said, “We knew they would start the game quickly and were really good in the first 15 minutes, but that’s normal. You have to stick to the Champions League quarter-finals and we did that and we passed. ”
On the other hand, Jürgen Klopp has failed, after winning the Champions League in 2019 and the much-anticipated tournament 2020, Liverpool will remain without a title this year. This is one of the reasons why Klopp’s “coach” has a clear mandate for himself and his team: “We love this competition and for other reasons it is very important that we come back next year. We can now focus on the Premier League and we will do that too. We have to invest everything now.”
Liverpool are sixth, three points behind fourth in the Champions League, with Chelsea, with Thomas Tuchel in between. Really hard work. And seven days before the end of the match, there was no time to make ill-timed decisions.
