Jürgen Klopp, 54, had already been informed that he had to go on the interview tour. But he didn’t want to miss the salute to the 2,000 or so Liverpool supporters who had accompanied his team to Villarreal. Klopp walked in their direction, looked up at them, and what could be seen from afar were gleaming white teeth framed by a distinctive full beard. Klopp clenched his right fist and snapped it up – once, twice, three, four times. Then he patted his chest, where the heart is, put both hands over his mouth and let a kiss fly through the night. And you didn’t just see it, you felt it: there on the almost deserted lawn, near the penalty area, was a completely happy man.
Klopp’s “Reds” had won 3-2 at FC Villarreal, and that means in addition to the 2-0 first-leg success: Six-time Champions League winners Liverpool have won the final for the most important trophy in the club for the tenth time in their history achieved in European club football. Klopp himself can look back on an impressive oeuvre with some pride: after 2013 (with Borussia Dortmund), 2018 and 2019, he will contest the fourth premier class final of his legendary coaching career. One man, Liverpool club legend Bob Paisley, had managed before Klopp to lead Liverpool to three premier league finals – with Paisley also lifting the trophy in 1977, 1978 and 1981; So far, Klopp has “only” won in 2019.
Klopp can also still hope to win four titles this season. His team has already conquered the League Cup; they are promising in the league, facing Chelsea in the FA Cup final and have now reached the Champions League final. “Enormous,” said Klopp. He told his players beforehand that he wanted to read the headline after the game: “The mentality monsters were in town!” He wanted to sign it later for the second half, but not for the first half. Spoke it and jokingly wondered if they were called “mentalitare monstrosos” in Spanish. Which is definitely not the case. But who cared that evening, on the Klopp in passing extended an impressive streak: the last three Champions League titles were won by German coaches: Klopp himself won in Madrid in 2019; In 2020, Hansi Flick inherited him with FC Bayern in Lisbon – and last summer Thomas Tuchel led Chelsea FC in Porto to the greatest imaginable consecration of club football.
Liverpool got a grip on the “football problems with football solutions” diagnosed by Klopp after the break
Liverpool’s entry into the final corresponded to the logic that resulted from Liverpool’s history, the much higher budget and the performance in the home stadium. But behind it the result hid a piece of work that Klopp’s team had apparently imagined easier.
On a rainy day when one could hardly have been surprised to have encountered a Noah building an ark on the way to the Estadio de La Cerámica – it was sort of the Reds their weather – the start failed in an unexpected way. Villarreal took the lead after less than three minutes – through Boulaye Dia, who had only played the role of an extra this season. And: It wouldn’t have been out of the question if referee Danny Makkelie had given a penalty in the 37th minute when Giovani Lo Celso and goalkeeper Alisson Becker collided in the Liverpool penalty area. Alisson had literally rolled over Lo Celso; the referee found Alisson played the ball first. A few minutes after the highly controversial action, Villarreal took a 2-0 lead through Francis Coquelin (41′).
Was Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker really the first on the ball?
(Photo: Nicola Mastronardi/ZUMA Press/Imago)
Liverpool looked disturbed enough to believe a third goal from Villarreal was plausible. Only: Liverpool escaped the fate that FC Bayern had suffered in the quarter-finals. Through the mentality sung about by Klopp. Above all, however, because the team got their “football problems” from the first half under control “with football solutions”, as diagnosed by Klopp. They also had the outrageous luck, albeit only marginally, that Villarreal striker Gerard Moreno, who initially played brilliantly, suffered a muscle injury in the middle of the first half. “We couldn’t take it emotionally,” said Villarreal coach Unai Emery.
“We didn’t have one problem in the first half, we had eleven problems,” said Klopp.
“I can’t remember exactly what I said at half-time,” Klopp explained, although his exchanges with the players revolved around the need to play better than in the first 45 minutes. Klopp had asked his analysts before the break to pick out a scene in which Liverpool had behaved well to show the players on screen at half-time. “But Peter Krawietz (Assistant coach/d. editor) said: He didn’t find any.”
Two mistakes and an impetuous excursion: Gerónimo Rulli (left) comes too late against Liverpool’s Sadio Mané.
(Photo: Eric Alonso/Getty Images)
Klopp saw the reason for this in the early deficit, which paralyzed his team’s thoughts and his movements. “We didn’t have the right structure, we didn’t play in the right spaces, we suddenly started playing long balls to force it, we were too static…” Klopp complained. He broke that momentum by bringing in Luis Díaz for Diogo Jota. Not that the Portuguese was the cause of all evil at Liverpool, emphasized Klopp: “We didn’t have in the first half a Problem, we had eleven problems.” But it was obvious that Diaz brought more agility and flexibility to the Liverpool game – which in turn had repercussions on the whole midfield. Even on Fabinho, who until then had not only been alongside Thiago, but above all alongside And: It played into Liverpool’s cards that Villarreal’s goalkeeper Gerónimo Rulli allowed himself to drop out of dramatic proportions.
When Fabinho scored the first (62nd), he let a comparatively harmless shot run through his legs. But what nobody suspected was that this would only be the prelude to further mistakes by the Argentine goalkeeper and ultimately the emotional collapse of the hosts. When Luis Díaz equalized in the meantime, Rulli slipped the ball through his legs again; when the score was 2-3, he ran out of the penalty area largely without rhyme or reason, but was then cornered by Mané so that the Senegalese only had to maneuver the ball into the empty goal. Liverpool’s third goal made the rest of the game just a matter of protocol. What remained was a dismissal for Étienne Capoué. And the pride of Villarreal. “We showed we weren’t there by invitation,” said coach Emery. “But it hurts.” Klopp, on the other hand, can look forward to the Paris final, which will also be the 62nd of 62 possible games for Liverpool this season. Not much more is possible.