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Champions League final - Tottenham vs Liverpool: Jurgen Klopp hails squad as best he has ever managed

The Liverpool manager believes his side have never had a better opportunity to win the competition

Mark Critchley
Tuesday 28 May 2019 13:09 BST
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Liverpool stun Barcelona: 'This club touches you like crazy' says Klopp

Jurgen Klopp believes his current Liverpool side is the best team he has ever led to a final and that finishing as Champions League runners-up last year has only made his players stronger.

Liverpool will play Tottenham Hotspur in Saturday’s showpiece at the Wanda Metropolitano in Madrid, hoping to heal the wounds opened by defeat at this stage against Real Madrid in Kiev last season.

Klopp reacted to that disappointment by spending approximately £165m in the transfer market, strengthening his squad in key areas, and ultimately leading Liverpool to a 97-point season in the Premier League.

Klopp will now have a second chance at lifting Liverpool’s sixth European Cup, and despite reaching this far with Borussia Dortmund in 2013, he believes he has never had a better opportunity to win the competition.

“I don’t like to blame my other teams. I love them all! They all gave everything but I have never been part of a final with a better team than this, that’s true,” Klopp said on Tuesday, at Liverpool’s pre-final media day.

“In different times, for different reasons my teams were good as well. I am not so surprised because our boys mix our potential with attitude in the best way I have witnessed. That is brilliant, exceptional, and it brought us where we are.

Liverpool will play in their second successive Champions League final thanks to completing a remarkable comeback against Barcelona, beating Ernesto Valverde’s side 4-3 on aggregate despite losing the first leg 3-0 at the Nou Camp.

“These boys did it for the chance of being there, gave us a lot, showed us a lot and in the five or six days between Barcelona and Barcelona, I would say nobody believed more than in this team than the team themselves. That is why we are here. It is a sensational situation.”

Jurgen Klopp applauds the Liverpool fans at full-time

Klopp admitted that the 2018 defeat in Kiev affected his players, but a year on, he described it as the “kick start” which his players required to improve, post a record points total in the Premier League and return to the same European stage again.

“It had a big influence on us. I remember that situation. When we stand in the queue in the airport in Kiev, all in tracksuits, hands down. It was a lot of different emotions,” the Liverpool manager remembered.

“But the plan was, we come again, we will be there again and now we are there, that is just incredible. I think pretty much each team that loses the final thinks we will put it right. They don’t all have the chance.

“It was the kick start for the development of this team, 100 percent. This team is not even to compare with the team of last year. It is good.”

Klopp’s only injury concern for Saturday’s final is midfielder Naby Keita, who will play no part having failed to recover from a thigh injury suffered in the defeat at the Nou Camp.

Roberto Firmino has not played since that night either, having aggravated a groin problem, but the Brazilian returned to training last week and Klopp expects him to be available on Saturday.

“Bobby was part of training last week, and will be in training from tomorrow,” Klopp said. “All we saw so far looked really good, everything looked fine. He will be fine, I am pretty sure.”

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