Against Borussia Dortmund, we all believed. There was a greater force at work. But against Sevilla, our belief ran out the minute the Spaniards equalised at the beginning of the second-half.
That’s our greatest night under Jurgen Klopp versus our most disappointing – the quarter-final second-leg of the Europa League versus the Final.
The main thing is that Liverpool learn from this, not just the team – but the fans.
Liverpool’s manager Jurgen Klopp asks for a noisy, vibrant Anfield before practically every home game – and there’s undoubtedly a feeling that at times we’ve let him down since he joined from Dortmund – whose support is perhaps the most raucous of any large club in Europe.
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Giving a lengthy interview to James Pearce of the Echo, Klopp explained how the supporters practically forced the team into getting back into the game against Dortmund, but that when we needed the same kind of push at St. Jakob-Park in Basel – the fans were too shellshocked to do the job required.
“Absolutely. Maybe each supporter who goes to Anfield should watch that last half-hour and remind himself again: ‘Ah, that’s what we can do’,” when asked about if Anfield’s Dortmund atmosphere is the benchmark.
“It wouldn’t have been possible, no chance, without the crowd. That’s for sure.
“Sometimes people maybe think that as manager I have to say this. That I want to involve the crowd or something.
“But I believe in it 100%. If the game happened again and you switched off the sound in the stadium, then no chance we win.
“It’s not just about the noise, it’s more, it’s about the vibe, everything. You could catch it. It was outstanding. I loved it.”
Against Sevilla, it just wasn’t the same.
If we get to a final this season, it’s paramount that the team doesn’t hide, and the supporters don’t either.
It’s clear from these comments that Klopp won’t allow a collapse from either ever again.
“We can speak about finals and say we lost, absolutely right,” Klopp continued.
“We talk about atmosphere and if anybody in the stands tells me that in that moment they thought ‘and now we’ll come back’, it’s not true because nobody behaved like this.
“It was the moment when someone pushed a button and this time the volume went down.
“It wasn’t nice. We could have won the game in the first half, but we lost it in the second.”