Statistics can tell the tale of Liverpool’s recovery over the past 12 months – Jürgen Klopp’s team suffered a sixth successive home league defeat one year ago on Monday and host Internazionale on Tuesday aiming for a 13th straight win in all competitions – but Fabinho’s Panenka in the Carabao Cup final paints it better. There is no clearer expression of the confidence flowing through Liverpool than the high-risk plan the Brazilian hatched 24 hours before going eye-to-eye with Kepa Arrizabalaga at Wembley.
“The day before I tried to do a Panenka,” the midfielder recalls of his impudent penalty in Liverpool’s shootout success against Chelsea. “It was just me and Luis Díaz, with no goalkeeper in the goal. I told him: ‘Tomorrow if it goes to pens, I will shoot it like this.’ He didn’t believe me. But when I was walking to the box to take the penalty, it was in my mind to shoot a Panenka. When you shoot a penalty like this you know that, if you miss, when you come back to the dressing room everyone will kill you. But it was in my mind that I would take it like this and that I could do it.”
