“Punishment”, “shame”, “unacceptable”: against Real Madrid, Klopp’s Liverpool sank

There are matches that we remember for a long time. This one will no doubt be a part of it: Liverpool – Real Madrid ended with a resounding 5-2 victory for the Madrid winners after they had been 2-0 up. After the final whistle, the reaction to this stellar evening was as rainy as the goals. First, on the one hand, this is England. The daily The Sun, one of the most influential in the country, closes its front page with one word “Di5grace”, which can be translated as “Shame” or “Shame”, clearly marking the number 5 as the number of goals scored. by Real.

Liverpool at the moment and since the beginning of the season is an absolute mess in defense. The midfielder has no more energy, the strikers are slow and certainly don’t have the cohesiveness that Firmino used to have, and Mane is falling behind former Reds defender Jamie Carragher in the newspaper columns. For the city of the Beatles, waking up on February 22nd is painful. “It’s hard to summarize: mixed emotions: annoyance and disappointment. For most of the first half, I really felt like we were playing well. We were unlucky to return to the dressing room tied up. Real Madrid punish you and they punished us at every opportunity. This result is largely due to their qualities. They have quality players all over the place, but we weren’t at our level,” says Jordan Henderson, England captain.

The same observation goes for manager Jurgen Klopp, who may well pay dearly for this scheduled elimination in three weeks: “We were 2-0 up. I thought the whole first half was good except for the goals. But we have become more passive. We no longer pushed when we needed to, because if we were passive against this team, we would be punished. The way we defended on the third goal was clearly unacceptable and after 3-2 it doesn’t help against a team that plays so well on the block. We ended up playing their game and couldn’t find the thread. »

“Vinicius is the most decisive player in the world”

On the other hand, sweet euphoria hovers on the other side of the Pyrenees. Real Madrid are 9 feet and a few fingers already in the Champions League quarter-finals to defend their title. Goal scorer Karim Benzema added an extra layer to the statue that fans are sure to dedicate to him one day in front of the Bernabéu stadium, and Vinicius Jr., scorer of the first two goals, became a hero. “Vinicius is currently the most decisive player in the world behind Carlo Ancelotti. There is no other player with this consistency. At the moment it is the most decisive. I hope it continues like this. »

The former PSG boss sums it up: “We suffered a lot at the start,” Ancelotti regrets. We can’t start games like that. Fortunately, this team knows how to keep their cool. We were very effective in attack and every time we managed to get out of Liverpool’s pressure we were able to create chances. Rodrigo, Vinicius and Karim (Benzema) were very sharp and focused. I tried to play differently than last year’s final because it’s a two-player game and it was important to score here. We made a bet that we would threaten ahead. We are very happy that we have won so much here, and the result shows that the team is getting better. »

What team other than Real Madrid can lose 2-0 to Liverpool and end up winning 5-2? No doubt: “With the score at 2-0, I remembered the first semi-final against Manchester City last year,” says the Italian coach. This time we were losing 2:0 after 14 minutes. At City we were losing 2-0 after 11 minutes (Real lost 4-3 but went out in both games). So that’s good: we’re improving”