THE REDS LONG WAIT FOR A PRESTIGE SILVERWARE WORTH IT

Liverpool is one of the best clubs in Europe. Their trophy cabinet is enough to tell you how big they are in club football; Liverpool has won eighteen (18) premier league titles, six (6) champions league trophies, seven (7) FA Cups, three (3) Uefa Super Cups, three (3) Uefa Cups and eight (8) Carabao Cup trophies. The performance Liverpool pulled out this season, both in England and Europe as a whole proved how good they are.

THE TROPHY-DROUGHT LIVERPOOL SIDE

Liverpool waited for fourteen (14) good years before they could lift a more prestige trophy. Although, they won the then Carling cup (now Carabao cup) in 2012 when they defeated Cardiff city 3 – 2 on penalties, after a 2 – 2 draw at normal time and extra time. With all due respect to Carabao cup, the tournament is not enough alone to justify a big club season in England. The Reds have lost three (3) European finals within this fourteen (14) years: two champions league finals in 2007 and 2018 against Ac Milan and Real Madrid respectively; also an Europa league final against Sevilla in 2016. Brendan Rogers, former Liverpool manager, came close in 2014 to end the hunt for a prestige trophy but a Steven Gerrard premier league slip against Chelsea began the end of their silverware hope.

THE TRANSITION   

Jürgen Klopp came in to replace Brendan Rodgers as Liverpool head coach on 8 October, 2015. Klopp had a nice time at Borussia Dortmund, helping them win a back – to – back Bundesliga tittles, plus a German cup in 2012. His arrival saw a lot of changes to this Liverpool team. One of these is changing their style of play. He came with high pressing (“gegenpressing”) football philosophy. Sport writer rehaan díaz, said: “Gegenpressing is the strategy of winning the ball back as soon as it has been lost, based on the insight that the player who has just won the ball is vulnerable, as he may be still getting the ball under control. He may not have the time to fully scan the distribution of his mates and opponents. It relies a great deal on speed and organization, looking to pressure the man with the ball. The idea is to regain possession quickly as high up the pitch as possible, thus countering the counter-attack”. Klopp has sold and send away most of the players Brendan Rodgers was using then. With the backing from the Liverpool board, Klopp is buying all the players he feels are good for the team irrespective of the price.

Another thing Klopp did was removing inferior complex and fear factor from these players’ mind. Then, this was so obvious that they performed very well against big guns but this change did not reflect on their performance against the “smaller teams”. Klopp noticed this and corrected it in 2018/2019 season.

This Klopp Liverpool side underwent three (3) years of transition. Now, they have become a force to reckon with and they can only get better.

THEIR REWARD FOR HARDWORK

It is a noticeable fact that Liverpool has improved and got better for three (3) seasons now. In football, the reward for winning matches is trophy. This is an evidence for impressive performances.

Klopp and this Liverpool team have put in so much work for them not to win anything since he became manager. They have come close to winning the Europa league, Champions league and Premier league in 2016, 2018 and 2019 respectively but all to no avail. On June 1, 2019, the odd of Klopp not winning finals came up again when Liverpool faced Tottenham Hotspurs in the Uefa Champions league final. They said he has lost six (6) out of seven (7) finals he has gone to. Klopp and his team worked on this and put it behind them. As we all know, the rest is history. Liverpool are 2018/2019 Uefa Champions league winners.

Champions league is the biggest tournament in club football, not all big clubs in Europe have ever won this trophy before. It meant a lot for them to have won it the 6th times in their history. With this, their 14 years long wait for a prestige silverware worth it, congratulations!