Jurgen Klopp has compartmentalised previous final defeats to turn Liverpool into showpiece winners, but Chelsea have had recent Wembley woes.
When he lost his first final as Liverpool manager against Manchester City at Wembley in 2016, Jurgen Klopp tried not to dwell too much on the fail. It felt “sh*t” but that was enough to shed the frustration. “Only silly idiots stay on the floor and wait for the next defeat,” he said.
Not a dweller on the reverses of life, old Jurgen. And there have been a fair few of those at the business end of a season.
After a three-month wait, another defeat landed on the Reds’ big day out against Sevilla in the Europa League when it seemed that a kinder destiny was calling after that magical Dortmund night at Anfield. Klopp was positive that he would “use the time” not taken up by European football. He did. They qualified for the Champions League and reached Kyiv in the big boys’ competition the following year. They lost again. Progress was being made at a short-term cost. “Liverpool exists to win trophies” had to be binned as a trademark for a while. Well, since 2012 actually.
There’s a banner on the Kop which reads ‘Liverpool FC exists to win trophies’
Fitting to see at the start of such a defining month for #LFC pic.twitter.com/39NntGjG09
— Caoimhe O”Neill (@CaoimheSport) April 2, 2022
Wind forward a decade and Jurgen the German has landed four knockout prizes. Sure enough, that old friend, the Champions League was delivered to start proceedings. The spin-off successes of the UEFA Super Cup and the World Club Championship followed. The latter is a strangely denigrated competition but Liverpool chased it down with laser focus, having never won it in three previous attempts during their retro glory years.
After a parlous year of Covid catastrophes and injuries, trophies returned to Kirkby after an epic tug of war against Chelsea in late February saw marginal offsides, four disallowed goals and a…
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