Liverpool 1 Sevilla 3: Reds overwhelmed as Jurgen Klopp shown size of task facing him next season
Europa League final: Reds unable to end marathon campaign with crowning glory
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Your support makes all the difference.Rafa Benitez was sitting in the press room at Anfield which once upon a time was where men like Bill Shankly, Ronnie Moran and Bob Paisley used to come and talk football. The Boot Room.
On the walls were photographs of the players who a couple of years before had won Liverpool their fifth European Cup.
“You wouldn’t believe,” Benitez said. “How difficult it was to find anyone who wanted to buy these players.”
Benitez was making the point that the team that had carried off the 'Miracle of Istanbul' was at its core a moderate collection of footballers and he considered the majority of them surplus to his long-term plans.
He would not have been averse to selling Steven Gerrard to Chelsea if the price had been right.
When he arrived on Merseyside, you wonder how many of the Liverpool squad Jurgen Klopp thought worth hanging on to.
Was Alberto Moreno the kind of full-back he required? Was Simon Mignolet one of the best four goalkeepers in the Premier League? How many of his centre-halves would pass muster in the big Champions League squads?
Klopp would have known the answers long before the 25 disastrous minutes that cost Liverpool everything in Basel.
It says something that Christian Benteke, the forward on whom Liverpool’s transfer committee had blown most of the money they received from Manchester City for Raheem Sterling, was considered a last, desperate fling of the dice in the Europa League final.
By then, Liverpool required two goals in less than 10 minutes merely to force extra time against Sevilla.
Klopp had inherited a club that had come within an ace of winning a title that in those pre-Leicester days seemed extraordinary and then fallen apart.
Steven N’Zonzi played against Liverpool in the final game of this season and last. Twelve months ago, Liverpool had been annihilated 6-1 at Stoke. Now they dominated the first half of a Europa League final, opened the scoring and then disintegrated.
The aftermath of both matches would have been thick with hurt, frustration and anger but Klopp’s achievement in driving Liverpool forward is undeniable. It would be wishful thinking to imagine he can achieve much more with the players who were by turns impressive and invisible in Switzerland.
Klopp would have had many doubts about Daniel Sturridge. Not in terms of ability - Graeme Souness thought him technically as good as any striker in England.
However, Sturridge has suffered 33 separate injuries and, no matter how brilliant a manager you are, or how addicted a footballer is to the doctrine of Gegenpressing, you cannot coach an injured player.
Sturridge had been left out of the side that was beaten 1-0 in the first leg of the semi-final at Villarreal and he had responded with a desultory display in defeat at Swansea.
Martin Keown, who like Souness judges from the pundit’s sofa, thought Sturridge had two advantages when it came to winning a place in England’s European Championship squad. He was fit and available. There were no others.
The goal he scored in a first half that Liverpool ran with what seemed astonishing ease was an answer to his critics, beautifully and deliciously struck with the outside of his left boot. Had he timed his run a fraction better, Sturridge would have scored a second before the interval, which might have provided the insurance Liverpool required against a Sevilla side that has won three successive Europa Leagues in Turin, Warsaw and now Basel.
They were not the kind of team that could be brushed aside for very long and for all the noise of the Liverpool crowd, the sound that will linger is that of the Sevilla defender, Daniel Carrico, lying on his back after the final whistle and howling with joy.
Liverpool probably deserved to win the trophy. They had been in the Europa League from the start, they had convincingly beaten Manchester United, they had pulled off an astonishing recovery against Borussia Dortmund to rank with anything in their history. But it was not enough.
Ten years before, Middlesbrough had done something similar, reaching what was then the Uefa Cup final after breathless turnarounds against Basel and Steaua Bucharest. They were then humiliated in the final against a team that on the night was far, far better. That team was Sevilla.
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