Prior to Liverpool’s Europa League encounter against Union SG on Wednesday afternoon, Jürgen Klopp gave his pre-game news conference at Anfield.
Before tomorrow night’s game against the Belgian team on matchday two, read a summary of the manager’s remarks.
Jürgen, it goes without saying that everyone is discussing what happened on Saturday. Throughout the day, everyone shown decency, including you. How does everyone feel about Saturday now that you’ve listened to the audio and witnessed exactly what happened?
The audio made absolutely no difference because I wasn’t all that interested in why things happened because I could already see the result—we scored a goal, but it didn’t matter. I stopped waiting for the sounds, then sat there trying to learn how it could have happened or anything. What I’m trying to convey is that, as huge and important as football is, at least for us, it’s really crucial that we deal with it properly.
And by that, I mean that none of the parties involved, including the fourth official, linesmen, on-field referee, and especially now, VAR, did it on purpose. We must remember that. Yes, that was a mistake—clearly a mistake—and I believe there would have been remedies later. And I can say right away—even though I’m sure some people don’t want me to say it—that I believe the result should be a replay, not so much as the manager of Liverpool but rather as a football fan. That is how things are, and it probably won’t happen.
The counterargument will likely be that if we open that gate, everyone will ask for it. Since I’ve played football for 50 years and am 56 years old, I believe the situation to be unprecedented. I don’t always handle it well, but I’m used to making poor decisions, making difficult decisions, and bah, bah, bah, all these kinds of things. But as far as I can recall, nothing similar never occurred. Because of this, I believe a repeat would be appropriate.
A replay, in my opinion, would be the appropriate course of action if it happened again, or the referee could convene both coaches and apologize for their errors, but we can fix them. Liverpool scores, and we move forward from there. It is evident that the fact that we gave up in a particular game two minutes after scoring a regular goal makes it more noteworthy. And because everything is interconnected, if the goal had been valid, the game would have kicked off in the middle of the field rather than where it did, and other similar things. Change would have occurred. Therefore, it is one aspect of my View of point.
