Liverpool
Despite losing badly on penalties, Liverpool’s head coach Arne Slot called the second leg of his team’s Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain the “best game of football” he has ever been a part of.
Harvey Elliott’s late goal in Paris gave Liverpool a 1-0 victory in the first leg of the match, but they lost at Anfield when Ousmane Dembélé scored to tie the score for PSG overall.
After that, the French champions won the shootout after Désiré Doué scored the game-winning penalty after Gianluigi Donnarumma had saved from Darwin Núñez and Curtis Jones. When Slot told reporters after the game,
“It was the best game of football I was ever involved in,” “I don’t have Liverpool’s managerial background, but I managed two teams at an amazing level. The first twenty-five minutes were quite intense.
“I also recall the first 25 versus Real Madrid and Manchester City at home, but what we displayed in the first 25 was incredible. But we were under 1-0 when I saw the scoreboard.
“I don’t believe we should have lost this football game after ninety minutes. Perhaps we deserved to go into extra time after 180 minutes. I felt that PSG might have been a little stronger than us in extra time, but we lost when it came to penalties.”
Liverpool won seven of their eight games to finish first in the Champions League league phase. They have also only lost once in the Premier League all season, putting them 15 points ahead of the competition. Additionally, Slot made an effort to maintain his optimism during his first season at Anfield.
Naturally, it’s shocking, and perhaps now isn’t the right time to inform the players, but we didn’t qualify for the Champions League the previous season, and we lost to Real Madrid 5-2 at home.
Therefore, if you must go out, do so in a manner similar to how we made it into a fierce battle against one of the top teams in Europe. It’s very unfortunate for us that if we are at the top of the [league phase] table, we have to play one of the top teams in Europe, PSG, but that’s the structure we’re in. We will return stronger the following season, but we must accept it.
Liverpool must now regroup ahead of this weekend’s Carabao Cup final against Newcastle United. However, Slot could be without several key players for the trip to Wembley, with both Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ibrahima Konatéhaving been forced off on Tuesday night.
“I have to ask but Ibou was more that he was tired than it was an injury,” Slot said. “With Trent, he had to come off. That’s never a good sign and from what I heard from people that saw the images, that didn’t look very good so I will be surprised if he’s available for Sunday.
“The good thing is that we play a final on Sunday so mentally that’s the best you can ask for, because that’s what you play football for to play in finals.”
