What Liverpool and Chelsea supporters did differently as incredible moment proves Jurgen Klopp’s greatest achievement
When is one injury one injury too many?
Clearly never, if you have Jurgen Klopp as your manager.
What Liverpool did to Chelsea at Wembley on Sunday was incredible. Make no mistake, this win was up there with the best – perhaps the best – of Klopp’s reign.
The subplots were clear, but a reminder of the broad strokes for the record, and because it’s always worth remembering the odds Liverpool overcame.
Eleven injuries, including no Mohamed Salah or Darwin Nunez, whose hopes of playing were extinguished in the build-up to the game. Another problem when Ryan Gravenberch was stood on by the clumsy Moises Caicedo inside half an hour, the Dutchman left on crutches after the game. Poor officiating, VAR interventions and a bench full of youngsters.
All pitched against a bloated, billion pound machine that, prior to the match, threatened to cough and splutter into life for the first time this season.
But Liverpool overcame. Klopp’s men playing like lions, embarrassing the Londoners with their sheer will to win.
It was nothing short of incredible, but then it’s hardly surprising.
For Chelsea 2024, see Everton 2020 and Curtis Jones arriving on the scene in style.
Or what about 2019 and a certain corner taken quickly.
You can even go back several nights to Luton Town at Anfield for evidence of what belief can do.
Klopp makes the impossible seem possible, the improbable virtually a sure thing.
And so Liverpool lifted their 10th League Cup with victory over Chelsea and Klopp is going out the way he came in, by instilling a belief and hope back into a football club that, however briefly, lost its way last season.
It was exactly what he did when he walked into a club which, months previously, had feebly ended a season with a 6-1 defeat at Stoke City and was a husk of what it once was.
But Klopp had Liverpool fans eating from the palm of his hand with one instant soundbite when he sat down with club media staff in 2016, telling fans to turn from “doubters to believers”.
And nine years later, that belief flows right throughout the place, from the first team to the academy, to the supporters in the stands.
And nothing summed that up more than a moment deep in the second half when the Liverpool end responded to wave after wave of Chelsea attacks with a deafening rendition of Allez Allez Allez, scarfs whirling in defiance as opposition supporters limply replied with a tame wave of their plastic flags.
Liverpool’s players responded by scrapping their way to the final whistle, before dominating Chelsea again in extra time.
Klopp may be running out of energy but his players rarely do. Witness Alexis Mac Allister running until he looked ready to collapse, or Wataru Endo, hunched and weary, fighting a £200m battle and winning. What about Luis Diaz, whose pestering of Chelsea’s defenders never stopped for 120 minutes?
Then there were youngsters Harvey Elliott and Conor Bradley, who responded to changes of circumstances and tactics with the maturity of players vastly more experienced than they.
- A 40-page souvenir special commemorating Liverpool FC’s Carabao Cup win will be available to buy in shops from Thursday or you can pre-order it HERE[3] now from our online shop.
Not to mention a whole host of Academy starlets who emerged to take the fight to players whose price tags make your head spin.
Indeed, Liverpool will hope sponsors Carabao hand out crates of their energy drink with the silverware. Fill up the trophy and drink deep, they’ve earned it.
For Liverpool’s youngsters, their footballing journeys are just beginning, but today is a day for them to savour. Klopp’s management may be only a short window of their career but they will do well to remember the lessons he’s taught them about belief. It’ll take them a long way.
Indeed, the same day in 2016 Klopp asked for supporters to change their mindsets with that soundbite, he later sat in his first ever press conference and guaranteed titles would follow within four years.
He kept his promise, but regardless, in the nine years he’s been on Merseyside he reminded Liverpool supporters of something more important. And it might be his greatest achievement and legacy he leaves behind.
When Liverpool fans head to pubs and bars around Wembley, back up the motorway or should signals allow, onto the train, they’ll do so with more cherished memories and moments to savour.
Because football isn’t always about the destination, it’s about the journey.
And thanks to Klopp, belief will take them a long way.
References
- ^ Liverpool Carabao Cup final win is the ultimate vindication of Jurgen Klopp (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ Liverpool player ratings as one player gets perfect score in astonishing Carabao Cup win (www.liverpoolecho.co.uk)
- ^ HERE (shop.regionalnewspapers.co.uk)