Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp puts faith in kids to win ‘most special’ trophy of his career

LONDON – The old saying that you cannot win anything with kids was thrown out of the window on Feb 25 as Jurgen Klopp put his trust in a host of youngsters, who repaid his faith as Liverpool beat Chelsea 1-0 after extra time to lift the League Cup for a 10th time.

The German, facing an injury crisis so severe it threatened to derail their plans at Wembley, turned to a group of young players with barely a handful of first-team appearances between them to dig him out of a hole.

As the game edged towards extra time with Chelsea on top, the flagging Reds, who last won the trophy two years ago, were in need of an injection of energy to wrestle momentum back in their favour.

The Liverpool manager brought on 19-year-olds James McConnell and Bobby Clark and Jayden Danns, 18, before also throwing on 21-year-old Jarell Quansah off the bench.

All four looked calm on the ball and unruffled by the occasion as Liverpool found the decisive breakthrough in extra time, as Virgil van Dijk headed the winner in the 118th minute.

The League Cup may be the least important of England's domestic trophies but Klopp, a Champions League and Premier League winner with Liverpool and two-time Bundesliga champions with Borussia Dortmund, said the victory was something special.

“I got told outside that you don’t win trophies with kids. Write it new. In my more than 20 years (as a manager), this is easily the most special trophy I have ever won,” he said.

“Sometimes I get asked if I am proud of this or that, I wish I could feel pride more often, but I was proud of absolutely everything today.

“Seeing the faces of the kids after the game, Jayden Danns, can you create stories in football that nobody would ever forget...

“Tonight, if you find the same story with academy players coming on against a top, top side, and winning it, that’s how we do it.”

Klopp, who is in his final season at Anfield, had already started the game with 20-year-olds Conor Bradley and Harvey Elliott in a line-up that was largely dictated by the players they had missing.

He will rarely have been so depleted in his managerial career with Diogo Jota, Trent Alexander-Arnold, goalkeeper Alisson and Curtis Jones, key forwards Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez and midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai recently joining a number of longer-term absentees on the sidelines.

The loss of Ryan Gravenberch to a nasty-looking ankle injury after 28 minutes also did not help the cause, forcing Klopp into a reshuffle that resulted in right-back Bradley playing up front.

Yet, against a Chelsea side assembled at great expense, Liverpool’s youngsters did not wilt.

“This was so special,” added the 56-year-old Klopp, who said age was not in his thought process when he chose his squad.

“You saw the circumstances, we had problems before the game. They became bigger during the game. Tonight is a night I will never forget and if nobody else sees it like that, no problem. For me, it’s a really nice memory forever.”

Meanwhile, it was a familiar outcome for Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino, whose time in England has seen him go close on numerous occasions without landing any silverware.

It was the second time Klopp had got the better of him in a major final, after Liverpool beat Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League in Madrid in 2019.

Said the Argentinian: “We didn’t get the reward we wanted. They need to feel the pain.

“We played for a trophy we didn’t get. There is nothing you can tell me to feel better.

“Liverpool lost the finals in the past, but they kept moving and kept believing. That is an example to us.” REUTERS, AFP