Jurgen Klopp subjected himself to a video nasty recently, watching back one of Liverpool’s defeats. “It was proper torture,” he said. He was not talking about the 2023 losses to Brentford, Brighton and Wolves, matches that could rank among the worst of his reign at Liverpool. Instead, the torturous element was the sense that his side did a lot right. Reliving the 2022 Champions League final for the first time was a different sort of agony. “We played a good game and could have won the game – and that’s the decisive word because we could but didn’t, because they scored and we didn’t, and that’s the decisive reason,” he said.
Klopp, the great proponent of heavy-metal football, watched it with the sound off, immersed in his thoughts, sat on his own. “Unfortunately,” he said. “There was a feeling of here and there and with an extra spark we could have made this thing [happen].” He felt his team were too cautious at times. “We did not take enough risks in little moments, we were not adventurous enough,” he explained. With a bit more boldness, Liverpool could have pulled off a historic cup treble.
