Gutted... absolutely gutted. Anyway, here are some thoughts I'd like to write down before going to sleep.
- I thought there were 3 main factors why we lost – we'll get to the other two later, but we have to start with the referee. Not sure how is it in England, but in Ukraine "Scandinavian referee" is already a pejorative term among fans – the last straw was Tom Henning Øvrebø's infamous performance in the Chelsea vs Barcelona CL semi-final (when he failed to award any of 5 or 6 legitimate penalty claims for one team). Well, Jonas Eriksson's performance tonight was almost as absurd – there were 3 blatant, deliberate handballs which should have resulted in at least 2 penalties against Sevilla in the first half alone (the 2nd one did look accidental, although I've seen them given. 3rd was shocking), but much like Ovrebo, this ref seemed to get ever more stubborn with each egregious foul. In contrast, Sevilla got all the soft free-kicks they wanted all game. Not sure about the offside decision for the 3rd goal, it was close but once again went against us. The final insult to injury was his refusal to do anything meaningful about Sevilla's outrageous time-wasting in the final 20 minutes, other than showing a yellow card to an already substituted player – yeah, that'll teach them bastards! Only 4 minutes added, despite all the fake injuries and substitutions and celebrations and whatnot. We can rightly criticize our team for their second-half disintegration, but it would have been very different if we were 2:0 or 3:0 up after the first half, as we should have been, had the rules been correctly applied. I am not too much in the mood to defend our players, but it's true that far more experienced teams than ours were known to lose their cool when faced with what appears like a persistent bias from the officials. I'm sorry to say this, but the referee's incompetence destroyed and tainted this game; maybe we would have won this game with a competent ref or maybe we would've lost anyway – the sad thing is that we'll never know.
- Sevilla and their coach deserve enormous credit for the laser-like precision of their tactical adjustments in the 2nd half. Klopp's strategy has prevailed in the 1st half (despite our players' nerves that were visible from the start) and we should have been out of sight by the interval (see p.1), but the sharp-thinking Emery was able to identify two of our glaring weaknesses during the course of the first 45 – lack of support for Can from Milner and the defensive catastrophe that is Moreno – and his adjustments decided the game. Sevilla were suddenly able to attack the space in front of our back 4 with speed and purpose and to exploit Moreno's weak positioning and decision-making. Once it became clear the original plan wasn't working any more, Klopp was in a difficult position as he didn't have the half-time interval to make counter-adjustments. The lack of obvious improvement off the bench hurt us too – objectively our best and most in-form 11 was on the pitch, so I understand why Klopp was waiting and waiting for them to find a solution – before throwing on Origi and Allen in desperation, when it was already too late. Still, in hindsight probably the strongest move after the 2nd goal would have been to sub one of the AMs for Allen or Hendo and try to regain some measure of control of the midfield. Or even Lucas, even though it would have looked bizarre to bring him on when we're a goal down.
- The 3rd and possibly most important factor was that several of our players were not psychologically ready to win in the final. Journalists will keep mentioning about Klopp losing 5 finals in a row – but is it because Klopp is a choker (which he's clearly not) or because on the contrary he has the ability to drag a team way above their station by his own personality and sheer will, but in the end the players themselves don't have enough self-belief to jump over the final hurdle? After all the psychology of a winner-take-all final is quite different from a home-and-away matchup; the players have to show their true mettle as they can't rely on home fans for inspiration or on the coaching staff to dissect and spoon-feed them every tactical detail in between the two games. In a final, players have to observe and make adjustments mostly by themselves and for that, they need to know how to deal with pressure. That was the difference in a nutshell – Sevilla were being badly outplayed in the first half, yet their players remained unfazed and were able to regroup and find another level. In contrast, when the game started slipping away from us our players were largely too nervous to make any meaningful adjustments (maybe that's why Klopp was delaying the changes – it's useless to introduce new ideas if you're not sure your players are in the right frame of mind to implement them, it might only confuse them even more). Particularly disappointing was that the player we needed most to deliver, the one who just swept all the end-of-the-season awards, has been simply MIA all game. Disappointing is not even the right word; I don't think I'm overdramatizing the situation to say that this game is a serious stain on Coutinho's career as a Liverpool player. This season in particular he has been gradually building up his stature as this team's leader and biggest star and to choke like this in the biggest and most consequential game in years now seriously calls this status into question. Will he forever be stuck in the "talented, but inconsistent" mode? Moreno was awful too, but he is far less important to this team and probably soon to be replaced and displaced anyway. Joe Allen for once didn't make any positive impact whatsoever and Benteke didn't win a single header in his time on the pitch. Fuck off.
- A couple of small positives in an otherwise deeply frustrating day – Kolo Toure was magnificent, our best player on the pitch by far. This is where big-game experience is worth it's weight in gold. Sturridge scored what I think should now be the goal of the season – it was some Ronaldinho-level magic and even more unbelievable given the importance of the occasion. Can wasn't perfect, but I thought his attitude was brilliant – he didn't deserve to lose. Also Lallana was magnificent in the 1st half; this was the first time I felt like I genuinely love him as a player. Many players made huge strides forward this season, but it still ends in disappointment.
- Spanish teams are full of cunts. I think this is fairly self-explanatory. This lot even outdid Villareal. Fuck Emery, fuck Banega, Gameiro, Koke and all the other cunts. Fuck the old cunt Monchi, too.
- I feel like shit, but still YNWA to all. My voice is hoarse from singing and shouting all game with the rest of the fans in the pub – they kept going even at 1:3. Proud of this club, Klopp, players and the fans.
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