Jurgen Klopp on Champions League final defeat, fatigue & stadium chaos

Jurgen Klopp has discussed what went wrong for Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League final on Saturday evening.

The Reds had plenty of chances to win the game at Paris’ Stade de France, but eventually succumbed to a 1-0 defeat thanks to a well-taken goal from Vinicius Jr.

Analysing his side’s performance in his post-match press conference, Klopp said: “After the game when I saw the stats it was 50-50 possession. We had a lot more shots, a lot more shots on target, but the most decisive stat is absolutely on Madrid’s side.

“Just to make sure that nobody thinks I wouldn’t congratulate Real Madrid, I do that now but I [also] congratulated everybody present and involved outside personally. They scored a goal, we didn’t, that’s the easiest explanation in the world of football and it’s hard, harsh to get anyway, [but we] respect that of course.

“When the goalkeeper is Man of the Match then something is going wrong for the other team, so we had I think three really big chances where Courtois made incredible saves. I would have loved to have had a few more of this calibre.

“In the last third we could have done better, a pass here, the crosses, especially towards the end of the game, towards Courtois made not too much sense. We had the best phase probably after they scored the 1-0, then we played immediately exactly in the spaces we had to play.

“In the first half there were good moments, when we found Sadio, next left to right from Casemiro, their centre-halves stayed deep, Sad could turn, arrived in the box. That was good. We wanted to play a bit more in their formation in the second half then around their formation.

“The problem is when you play against Real Madrid and they defend that deep, the counter-attacking threat they are is immense. You cannot ignore that. I saw us doing really a lot of good things, to be honest, but it was not enough and we take that.”

When asked if the game being Liverpool’s 63rd of the season made a difference on the night, Klopp responded: “Let me say, that doesn’t help, but I don’t think it was the reason.

“We all know, the chances we had, when the player shoots a ball, the ball going in or not is on the foot actually only an inch, that’s all. Nothing to do with being at the peak of your physical things or not.”

Klopp also discussed the chaos outside of the stadium prior to kick-off, revealing that his family had trouble getting to the stadium: “Not a lot and I couldn’t speak to my family yet, but I know the families had real struggles to get into the stadium.

“But the reasons, I don’t know yet. What I heard is that we will have further investigations to figure out what was going on there. I heard a few things that were not good, not nice. Obviously it was pretty tricky out there but I don’t know more about it.”