Euro: 2019 Champions League Final

[Evilo]

Everything is relative, those four finals saw in total 13 goals, so 3.25 per game.

Not sure which 4 finals you're alluding to, but :
90 : 1 goal
91 : 0 goal
92 : 1 goal (in OT)
93 : 1 goal
94 : 4 goals
95 : 1 goal
96 : 2 goals
97 : 4 goals
98 : 1 goal
99 : 3 goals (two off two corners in the dying minutes)

90s were clearly a non scoring era. And those are not just stats, I watched them all, and YUCK.

 

[Evilo]

I'm a neutral, gave up on the game after 60 minutes. One of the worse finals I have ever seen. Or maybe it's that I'm getting older and losing my sense of loyalty to sports when the game is bad and just turning it off and watching something else.

Younger me would happily sit through any game for the sake of seeing it, I saw Greece's entire Euro 2004 run.....

I just dunno if it's worth it anymore.

Here here. I turned it off as well. Would rather watch a TV series with my wife. She was surprised to me giving up the CL final, but frankly, it was beyond boring.

 

[Nordiques1979]

I don't want to say he's the perfect manager because he does make mistakes. He made one today with Firmino starting and another with starting Gomez in Barcelona. But, man. The tactics today were boring but they were what we needed in order to maximize our chances of winning. I couldn't take losing another final and I don't think he could either despite some of the things he said about losing last year. I don't know what it would be like to plan so well to get to all those finals and lose them, and in some cases rather have them taken from you. His tears in the aftermath of this game tell that story. So, with how last year's final ended, and the three second place finishes, and all the other lost finals that stuck with me for years, I would have been cool with Liverpool playing like a Mourinho team in order to win this one.

There were some comments in the buildup about how he is definitely as hard as a rock, but that he doesn't hold grudges unless someone pisses him off over and over again. The common theme with this season was that never happened. Anyway, what I was thinking and almost forgot, was that I do think Liverpool will continue to be successful although it may not always culminate in a trophy. Maybe it never will again, but a collection of players and manager this good usually wins trophies. I'll enjoy this while it lasts I don't even care if it happens again right now. We waited years for anything like this.

Most importantly, what would have been Klopp speech at the start of the season if they would lose the CL ? How to motivate players when you lost PL with one regular lose AND two CL finals in a row??

I'm glad he isn't gone to Switzerland like he said !!

 

[Live in the Now]

Most importantly, what would have been Klopp speech at the start of the season if they would lose the CL ? How to motivate players when you lost PL with one regular lose AND two CL finals in a row??

I'm glad he isn't gone to Switzerland like he said !!

He would have blamed himself straight away I think. That’s just what he does judging from the past. This would have been crushing though there’s no doubt about that.

 

[Savant]

Here here. I turned it off as well. Would rather watch a TV series with my wife. She was surprised to me giving up the CL final, but frankly, it was beyond boring.

I can see how it would have been tough viewing for a neutral. I was following best I could. Plenty of teams have won the Champions League by neutralizing the opponent at the expense of offense. Traditionally Liverpool has not been one to use that mold, but a win is a win.

Really glad Origi scored so no one can complain about the PK. I thought it was a PK but my friend who is also LFC fan did not. Who knows.

Divock Origi. He doesn't make sense. None of his goals make sense. Do you smell what Divock is cooking?

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

I didn't really have too high hopes...

But to be fair, I really did not like that penalty call. Match would have been entirely different without it.

 

[Evilo]

I can see how it would have been tough viewing for a neutral. I was following best I could. Plenty of teams have won the Champions League by neutralizing the opponent at the expense of offense. Traditionally Liverpool has not been one to use that mold, but a win is a win.

Totally, and we won WC 98 by playing defensive football from the first knockout game to the final, so I understand that as a fan, you don't care.
But as a fan I was also much more of a fan of EC 00 than WC 98 exactly because of the football played.

 

[Savant]

Totally, and we won WC 98 by playing defensive football from the first knockout game to the final, so I understand that as a fan, you don't care.
But as a fan I was also much more of a fan of EC 00 than WC 98 exactly because of the football played.

Totally. And that's fine. Liverpool's CL run had its fair share of exciting games. I think the three week layoff explains some of that though. Hopefully UEFA learns from that.

 

[Evilo]

Why UEFA? It's totally the EPL fault.
They whine about the packed schedule, they take no Xmas break and yet they finish WAY earlier than most leagues.
UEFA waited the usual days after the last league is finished, which was Italy IIRC.

 

[Theokritos]

The reason we didn't get a great entertaining final was that Liverpool knew them too well and specifically knew too well exactly how to beat them, by letting them have possession and destroy themselves. Different opponents require different approaches and Klopp was great at that all season. I hope he stays forever.

Mane, Salah, Firmino did not do anything because they did not have to.

In regards to Liverpool’s tactics, it seemed clear that Klopp made the intentional choice to make it a bit of a boring game after the penalty.

I don’t fault him for that at all, you do what gives you the best chance to win.

I think there is a little too much "they won, so their approach must have been right" reasoning here. If Tottenham score the equalizer in the second half, then the approach suddenly doesn't look so good anymore.

 

[Evilo]

Yeah it wasn't a 2-0 lead they had. Liverpool didn't do more because they couldn't do more, not because they didn't choose to.
They parked the bus after that pen and hoped for a counter.
The catenaccio worked to prevent any dangerous Spurs attack though, that much is true.

 

[Theokritos]

Also not in an 'I told you so' kind of way at all, and I realise Salah had a generally poor game, but wow is Mane an incredible player or what? He's every bit as good as, if not better than, Firmino and Salah.

At this point I think it is obvious Mane is a considerably better player than Firmino and Salah. Easily the best player on the team together with Van Dijk.

 

[Theokritos]

I'd say Milan-Juve was as devoid of events, but the actually quality of football was higher.

And then the referee let the goalies cheat in the penalty shootout. What a crapish final that was.

 

[Prntscrn]

Liverpool had a 63% passing accuracy, ouch. It was actually laughable yesterday

 

[maclean]

I didn’t watch the whole celebration tbh, I had to go buy some Raid, ****ing spiders

Bro, spiders ARE raid

 

[Stray Wasp]

Also not in an 'I told you so' kind of way at all, and I realise Salah had a generally poor game, but wow is Mane an incredible player or what?

I was impressed by his shielding the ball with his body. A very useful quality in a wide forward at any time, but especially important yesterday with Firmino out of sorts and little involved.

 

[Savant]

Why UEFA? It's totally the EPL fault.
They whine about the packed schedule, they take no Xmas break and yet they finish WAY earlier than most leagues.
UEFA waited the usual days after the last league is finished, which was Italy IIRC.

That's a fair point too. I can agree with that But my point remains it's a really long layoff.

 

[Corto]

I was impressed by his shielding the ball with his body. A very useful quality in a wide forward at any time, but especially important yesterday with Firmino out of sorts and little involved.

It wasn't just Firminho either. I mean, outside of Allison and maybe Robertson I can't say any Liverpool player had to play fantastic football to win a CL final.
They were never tested.
Sadly, neither was Tottenham. It's just that they were on the wrong end of a fluke handball.

It's like both teams were terrified of playing football.

 

[Savant]

I was impressed by his shielding the ball with his body. A very useful quality in a wide forward at any time, but especially important yesterday with Firmino out of sorts and little involved.

Yeah I am glad Klopp realize this and took Firmino off. As opposed to what happened with Kane on the other side

 

[hatterson]

I think there is a little too much "they won, so their approach must have been right" reasoning here. If Tottenham score the equalizer in the second half, then the approach suddenly doesn't look so good anymore.

With the way both teams were playing (poor quality, lack of intensity, sloppy play, etc) Liverpool were far more likely to keep the lead by just calmly sitting in defense and daring Spurs to actually make a good play.

Sure if Spurs scored they’d have had to change strategies, but the way it was going that seemed pretty unlikely and so the best strategy was to stay stable at the back and avoid accidentally giving them a free chance on the break while numbers are forward in a high press.

 

[Evilo]

No, that was just a scared strategy. They parked the bus for 88 minutes. And Spurs had no answer for that bus parking.

 

[Stray Wasp]

It wasn't just Firminho either. I mean, outside of Allison and maybe Robertson I can't say any Liverpool player had to play fantastic football to win a CL final.
They were never tested.
Sadly, neither was Tottenham. It's just that they were on the wrong end of a fluke handball.

It's like both teams were terrified of playing football.

The amount of longer passes to which each team so often resorted made little sense when you factor in both conditions and conditioning.

Liverpool's very first forward pass of the game was that long crossfield ball, which presumably was pre-planned with the express purpose of pushing Spurs on the back foot before they could play themselves in. Given it led to the goal, it worked - albeit in a manner that could hardly have been foreseen. The trouble was that afterward they struggled to string two passes together.

There were sporadic hints of Spurs' passing game being about to click, particularly when threatening the areas between the touchline and inside forward, but time and again hesitancy, misunderstanding or bad execution let them down. To what degree we blame nerves, and to what degree we cite rustiness is a moot point.

 

[New Jersey]

seven years ago i was still a teenager in high school absolutely thrilled at this club winning a penalty shootout against cardiff city.

the club was still fresh off the gillett/hicks fallout. it seemed like the stories of european glory would remain just those. a league cup was *something* to celebrate and gave me hope that maybe this club could get back to its silverware-winning statute of old someday but really it seemed like the mighty reds were off wandering the desert.

rodgers gets us close to league, gerrard slipped, yeah, yeah, f***ing twats ate that up. we get into the champions league, collect only five points in the group stage, eliminated from the europa league in the round of 32 by besiktas, suarez leaves, club regresses from its second place finish in the league, rodgers can’t recover the next season, in comes klopp...

klopp takes us to a european final immediately, showing us that the glories of old aren’t *necessarily* dead, go to basel and lose to a good sevilla side, fair play.

the club gets back into the top four by the next season, the pieces gradually fall into place in reflecting klopp’s style and ambitions, i could ramble on and on and on but it’d all be window dressing. this club is special. this is a club that refuses to die and refused to be denied its rightful place among europe’s elite despite all the ups and downs which occurred since that legendary night in istanbul. it’s just... i just... i’m literally f***ing speechless, even the next morning.

“we must turn from doubters to believers.”

liverpool are champions of europe again.

 

[Albatros]

Not sure which 4 finals you're alluding to, but :
90 : 1 goal
91 : 0 goal
92 : 1 goal (in OT)
93 : 1 goal
94 : 4 goals
95 : 1 goal
96 : 2 goals
97 : 4 goals
98 : 1 goal
99 : 3 goals (two off two corners in the dying minutes)

90s were clearly a non scoring era. And those are not just stats, I watched them all, and YUCK.

Catenaccio was a thing in and around the 1960s, the Italians won four finals with it back then. And lost a fifth one that also saw three goals scored.

 

[Evilo]

Catenaggio was a thing in and around the 1960s, the Italians won four finals with it back then. And lost a fifth one that also saw three goals scored.

Yes, hence my original post about "save for the 60s, the teams that used it were from the 90s".