Loris Karius went from forgotten man to headline act in the space of 30 seconds on Saturday night.
Nick Pope ’s moment to forget against Liverpool has opened the door for Loris Karius to avenge two blunders he’d also like consigned to history. Newcastle United are set to throw the German goalkeeper his first start as they go in search of their first major trophy since 1955 this weekend.
The Magpies have enjoyed a fantastic season built on the solidity of Pope and his Premier League leading 12 clean sheets. But after the England international handled the ball outside of the penalty area, his Wembley fate was sealed.
And for all of the protestations of innocence from fans and pundits alike, Pope will have a watching brief for the Carabao Cup final. Instead it will be the much-maligned Karius hoping to keep out Marcus Rashford and Co.
From a Newcastle perspective there is understandable trepidation. Karius hasn’t played a single game in two years, with Eddie Howe insistent his performances in training matches will suffice.
But it was a performance three years prior which rubber-stamped a reputation the 30-year-old has never been able to shift. Had things gone differently in Kyiv, Karius would have joined the pantheon of Liverpool's European Cup-winning goalkeepers which includes Jerzy Dudek, Bruce Grobbelaar and Ray Clemence.
Instead, he became a punchline to a joke no Liverpool supporter needs to hear again. The Reds headed to the Ukraine capital as underdogs against Real Madrid and knew they would need to be at their best to be crowned champions of Europe for a sixth time.
Karius wasn’t, to say the least. His first blunder came in the 51st minute when he inexplicably rolled the ball straight to Karim Benzema to open the scoring. He could do little about Gareth Bale’s stunning overhead kick, but was left red-faced when his second came courtesy of a tame shot from distance.
"I don't feel anything right now. Today I lost my team the game and I feel sorry for everyone,” he said after the full-time whistle. "I'm sorry for everyone - from the team, from the whole club - that the mistakes cost dearly."
However, it quickly became apparent that his gaffes may not have been totally self-inflicted. Replays pinpointed the moment Sergio Ramos barged into Karius, treating him to a nasty blow to the head.
He would stay on though - with no assessment taking place - and just 132 seconds later, Benzema’s gift-wrapped opener was presented to the Frenchman. “‘How can we all think that the boy who didn’t show any weakness in that game until then made these big mistakes in a very important game and nobody thinks it’s because of the knock he got?” Jurgen Klopp bemoaned in the days after the defeat.
“I thought it was too late, you cannot check that. But now I know a concussion isn’t coming and going in a day – if you have one, you see it days later. Five days after the final, Loris had 26 of 30 markers for a concussion still. That’s clear."
Dr. Ross Zafonte of Massachusetts General Hospital claimed the keeper had suffered "visual spatial dysfunction" after the incident and such deficits would have affected his performance.
Zafonte explained: “At the time of our evaluation, Mr. Karius’s principal residual symptoms and objective signs suggested that visual spatial dysfunction existed and likely occurred immediately following the event.
“Additional symptomatic and objectively noted areas of dysfunction also persisted. It could be possible that such deficits would affect performance.”
At the time there was no opportunity for Liverpool to take Karius out of the firing line and bring Simon Mignolet into the action. However, had that incident happened in this week’s Liverpool and Real Madrid clash, the result may have been very different.
In 2021 UEFA introduced a concussion charter which enables teams to check on players for three minutes, before determining whether they should continue. Had that time been afforded to the Reds that night, at the very least, there would have been a lengthy delay reducing the chance of his immediate blunder.
Klopp added: “If you ask Loris, he says he didn’t think about it and didn’t use it for a second as an excuse. We don’t use it as an excuse, we use it as an explanation.
"That’s always important, that’s what analysis should be: you explain why things happen. So, from this point of view, from my side everything is fine. We don’t think about that anymore and we start completely new."
Liverpool certainly went for the “completely new” breaking a world record to sign Alisson Becker from Roma two months later. As for Karius, he wouldn’t play a competitive match for the club again, completing loan spells at Besiktas and Union Berlin before returning to the Premier League with Newcastle.
Against Manchester United, Karius will be given a rare opportunity to change the narrative and write a more positive chapter into the story of his career. And while concussion substitutes haven’t been formally introduced to English football, the attitude surrounding head injuries has changed markedly and should a repeat of Kyiv happen, there is a much higher chance that the correct conclusion will be reached.
