Daniel’s Debrief: Chelsea 0-1 Liverpool

I’d planned my intro.

‘It was just a game too far. But be so, so proud of those lads.’

I’d prepared for a heartbreaking but valiant defeat from about 80 minutes on.

If, as we all feared and expected, Chelsea got the job done in extra time, I’d have been gutted but would’ve also been peaceful about it in the respect to even get that far was a sensation in itself.

What that team has done today is unbelievable in every sense of the word. 

It is yet another miracle from the man who has turned a drop of water into a fucking vineyard.

Everything that you see today is him. Everything you see is Jurgen Klopp.

It’s Jurgen Klopp and it’s this era.

There’s winning. Teams win. Liverpool have won before.

And, the bad news for anyone who thinks we’re done when Klopp goes is that we will win again. I can promise you that.

What I can’t promise you though, is that winning will ever feel the same again.

There’s an intangible feeling of it just mattering more, meaning more, being more under him.

I hailed his Luton heroics the other night as one of his best wins as manager and he references Barcelona in 2019 after that game.

Then there’s shades of it again with the entire squad lined in front of the Red end at Wembley, being serenaded.

And like Barcelona, there’s the optics of what you’ve got there. Not eleven players. Not even sixteen. Not even just players.

A squad of footballers and a group of incredibly committed and talented people working behind them.

The Liverpool academy has had some stick over the last 20 years but it has pretty much won the club a trophy there.

The likes of Conor Bradley, Caoimhin Kelleher, Harvey Elliott, Bobby Clark, Jayden Danns, James McConnell and Jarell Quansah have all played a huge part in this final.

And that group of players has been found, selected and developed and it has culminated in that, culminated in them performing and winning on the biggest of occasions by people behind the scenes who we probably don’t even know the names of.

But, there’s Klopp. 

One of his first acts at Liverpool was to move the academy players to train in the same setting as the first team and this could prove to be his greatest legacy.

Between them; Danns, McConnell, Clark and Bradley have got 35 Liverpool appearances. And yet they all make an impact at Wembley in a cup final against a grossly expensive Chelsea team.

And the thing that always gets me about these academy players coming through is how, with pretty much all of them, there’s a similarity with a player of the Klopp era.

James McConnell comes on and the biggest compliment I can pay him is that you barely notice that Alexis Mac Allister, who had been sublime, had been replaced.

McConnell plays exactly as Mac Allister would and his extra-time performance is something people will talk about on pub tables in decades to come.

The way he takes the ball on the half-turn, the way he wins it when he’s got no right to on the touchline and the way he brings down Conor Gallagher when he’s on the break - what a tactical foul.

Every bit of him screams Mac Allister. Stylistically, so similar.

Mac Allister puts in yet another beautiful performance and is one of the signings of the season. He is just a metronome in that midfield and he can be everything you want him to be all in the same game.

Clark comes on and buzzes around and for 20 minutes is tremendous and his life and energy screamed Jordan Henderson of years ago.

Quansah defends in exactly the same style as Virgil Van Dijk. Bradley is remarkably similar in his approach to Andy Robertson 

The product of Klopp having the academy train with the first team is that he’s built and moulded players in his image and in the image of his players.

So, when we need to go to the well and bring youngsters into the first team, you reduce the scale of the transition because they are going to be playing the same style that they’ve been playing in the U21s and U18s.

The club has become a farm for making Jurgen Klopp footballers.

His faith in players is remarkable and he never gives up on them. A year ago I couldn’t cope with Joe Gomez much longer after Napoli, Leeds and Real Madrid but the manager didn’t give up on him and he’s having the best season of his career.

In November, I was pretty done with Kelleher and I didn’t see how Liverpool could win a competition with him in goal.

Well today, he is a major reason why they win a competition.

This is his best Liverpool performance by a mile.

In two League Cup finals at Wembley, he’s played 240 minutes and not conceded a goal. The close-range save from Cole Palmer is brilliant, the one-one-one against Gallagher is Alisson-esque in his positioning and handling of the situation and that has been a weakness in the past.

Wataru Endo is breathtaking on the day and probably had no breath by the end of the 120 minutes.

His block from Nicolas Jackson in the first half is one of the all-time great goal denials. The ground he covers is off-the-chart and he is another that Klopp did not give up on after a tough start.

Harvey Elliott and Luis Diaz have mixed days in terms of output but their determination and work-rate is second to none, they both do 120 minutes and Elliott doesn’t look like he can do much more than 60 at points.

Ibrahima Konate is monstrous at the back and combines setting the tone with last-ditch defending.

And then there’s the captain, who scores twice to win the game but only one of them ends up counting.

It is a moment. It is his moment and it is very much his team.

Virgil Van Dijk. Looks after the defence with Konate, scores the winner and lifts the trophy.

The Liverpool team at Wembley embody Klopp’s values - hard-work, commitment, effort, bravery, going the extra mile.

As I say, they’re a squad built in his image.

It may not get fully appreciated how incredible this is. When the lineup dropped, Liverpool had gone from being favourites to level pecking in my mind.

Losing Ryan Gravenberch early and ending up with Bradley on the wing felt like the beginning of the end.

They get to 90. Some effort. But it feels like it’s only a matter of time for Chelsea despite a pretty even 90 minutes.

The changes make Liverpool youthful to the point of comedy and yet still they are incredibly competitive and are by far the better team in extra time.

There’s a five-minute period in extra time where all you can hear is Allez Allez Allez and it’s the best noise I’ve ever heard at a football game.

It was saying what we all thought. This might, probably is, going to get away from us, but let’s give the boys a fucking cheer for their effort here.

And then the moment. 

Kostas Tsimikas. 

Virgil Van Dijk.

Bang.

MIRACLE.

Klopp finishes the team with only Van Dijk of his strongest eleven - he only started it with he, Konate, Mac Allister and maybe Robertson.

It’s a cup final.

We end the game with a lineup that would’ve looked weak for a third round tie.

It’s one of the greatest stories under Klopp. Because it simply shouldn’t happen - they have no right to do what they do.

For Chelsea, they are everything that Liverpool aren’t. They are directionless and nothing summed that up more than the performance of their captain Ben Chilwell.

Compare him to Van Dijk and the two captains were worlds apart in quality and mentality.

Mauricio Pochettino must be ashamed of his players, not necessarily for not winning it in 90, but for the extra-time performance, where they sit off a knackered and junior-looking Liverpool team and try to play for penalties.

They have a £200m midfield of Enzo Fernández and Moisés Caicedo.

We ended the game with Endo, McConnell and Clark there.

I like Pochettino, I really do. I always have done. But this is a bit of shambles from his point of view.

He says after the game that “it’s Liverpool” and Chelsea’s dominance over Liverpool and the rest of the country for a twelve-year period between 2005 and 2017 makes me think about how Klopp has turned the tide remarkably.

The standards under him are so high. The expectations are too.

As finals go, there’s only Istanbul in 2005 that’s better, for me.

It encapsulated everything that this era has been.

Daniel