Liverpool 2-3 Atletico Madrid: Jürgen Klopp's reaction
Jürgen Klopp insisted Liverpool will 'come again' in the Champions League after their defence of the title was ended by Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night.
The Reds were on course to overturn a one-goal deficit in the second leg of the last-16 tie when Roberto Firmino made it 2-0 four minutes into extra-time at Anfield.
But Atletico struck three times in the remaining additional period to win 3-2 on the night and 4-2 on aggregate, halting Liverpool’s quest to reach a third consecutive final in the competition.
Read a summary of Klopp’s reaction to the loss at his post-match press conference below…
On his thoughts on Liverpool’s performance and the result…
I think everybody who saw the game tonight knows that it could have been different. I loved our first 90 or 95 minutes, however long it was. Our first, main mistake tonight was that we scored the second goal too late; we scored in extra-time and not in the 90 minutes, so that was our fault. When you see a team like Atletico packed with world-class players in their positions and they play the way they play, it is the most difficult thing to do, to face, that’s how it is. We did exceptionally well, we played exactly in the spaces we have to play. I loved the football we played, I loved how we played in the half-spaces, I loved how we used our triangles, squares on the left and right side, how we passed the ball, how we came to finishes. We wanted to have first-touch crosses and we had [them], it’s how we scored the first goal – a super goal. We caused them more problems than probably people thought after the first game; against a defensive set-up like that, to cause a team that many problems is really exceptional, so I loved that.
But we scored the second goal, all good and then everybody saw their first goal. Come on, if you lose – and we lost tonight – you do it always for some reason and they’re always different. Tonight of course, that pass was not really helpful. Adrian is a super player, I love the boy, but it is in this moment the wrong decision, or he didn’t hit the ball right. I don’t know. Is it then necessary they score the goal? No, but when they finished the situation off Adrian is still on the way back and not in the right positioning, so it was a bit easy to finish that situation off, I would say. In that moment, usually conceding a goal is part of football and should not have a massive influence, but in this moment the momentum changed. Before that, Madrid thought, ‘Wow, how should we cope with that?’ In that moment, everything that was natural before that – how we played, how we were positioned, what we did – it was not easy, but it felt natural [and] right. But it changed and was now different and they were now, ‘Ah, OK, could be our game tonight’, so we became a bit stiff and they became a little bit fresher legs or whatever.
In the end they scored two more goals and we didn’t, so we lost both games – congratulations to Atletico, they are through. I said it now already to pretty much all TV stations, I am really an under-average loser, to be honest. At least tonight, if I would say all the things I have in my mind I would look like the worst loser in the world, so I best stop here.
On what impact the disappointment of the defeat has on Liverpool’s season…
Nothing, no impact. Come on, we tried everything. For two-and-a-half years we had an exceptional ride in the Champions League, we had party after party after party in the Champions League pretty much. And tonight was a party, everything was set, it was great – crowd exceptional, the stadium, everything showed up in the best way. The boys delivered a super game, fought hard, played well and scored wonderful goals. But we lost. That’s it. No impact on anything. Now we have more time to prepare the Premier League games, we will see how the season will go on – nobody knows that in the moment exactly, obviously. We were lucky in moments in the Champions League, when we went through for some reason. Usually we really deserved it but there were lucky moments as well. Tonight we are out. Atletico won both games, they are deservedly in the next round. So from now on we will watch the Champions League instead of being part of it. But everybody knows we will come again and go again. Thank you to everybody who helped us on that ride. But now it’s over, I cannot change that anymore. But there will be no impact. This game, 120 minutes, I didn’t have time so far to ask the boys [but] we looked tired as well, of course. Hopefully they are all fine. Then we have now three days or so to prepare the derby and we will play that. That’s the impact a game has. But going out has no impact.
On whether he spoke to Adrian after the final whistle…
He’s a man and he knows that’s how it is. We will not blame him for a second – what you do, I don’t know, but stay respectful, that would be really nice because he didn’t want to do that, he saved us in so many moments when he played. Since he’s here, he had super performances. This goal didn’t help tonight but that’s how it is. I said, if you lose a game you always lose for some [different] reasons. Tonight, this was not the moment when we lost the game, but it had a big impact. We should not say it was not like this because it was obvious, but that’s it. We conceded more goals after that and we didn’t score the goals in other situations. We had plenty of reasons why we didn’t go through. How it is in life, especially when your job is in public, people judge you. But he’s a man, a grown man, and he will deal with that. We will help him with that but I don’t think he needs it, to be honest.