Jurgen Klopp has to stop making excuses – Atletico deserved to progress
Jurgen Klopp foolishly complained about Diego Simeone’s style of play, despite the latter’s Atletico Madrid side deservingly beating Klopp’s Liverpool side in the Champions League on Wednesday.
It was a tough loss for Liverpool on Wednesday night. Not only did they fail to beat Atletico Madrid on aggregate, despite being the defending Champions League winners and favourites to repeat, but they also ended up losing their first match at the Anfield fortress in over 2 years.
After the defeat, where Liverpool certainly should have done better than they did, Jurgen Klopp made some foolish comments in his post-match press conference, claiming that Atletico Madrid don’t play proper football (whatever that means!):
"“I don’t understand why Atletico play this type of football with the quality they have. They could play proper football.” – Jurgen Klopp"
Jurgen Klopp was clearly frustrated with the result, but it’s appalling that a manager who has been involved with football his whole life could be so naive and narrow-minded in this situation. Atletico Madrid don’t play beautiful football, no, and it’s easy to criticize them when they don’t get results (like this year in La Liga). But when they win, how can you complain? They have every right to play the football that they do.
After all, the aim of football, at least at the Champions League level, is to win, not to achieve validation from Klopp by playing “proper football”.
Atletico Madrid won both matches, won the tie, and they thoroughly deserved to, regardless of how reserved their football was.
Why the rush to denigrate Atletico Madrid? Liverpool were superb last night...but Atleti got the absolute maximum out of what they had in the game. From 2-0 down, shifted gear, brilliant counterattacks. Resolve then ruthlessness.
— Jonathan Northcroft (@JNorthcroft) March 12, 2020
Both sides were good, one lost, it happens.
Of course, Liverpool could easily have won the tie. Adrian’s awful mistake was the vital blow, and it’s safe to suggest that they would have advanced had they had Alisson in net rather than the subpar Spaniard. However, Liverpool had chances and chances to put the ball in the back of the net and ultimately did not put the tie out of sight when they could have.
Jurgen Klopp should choose his words more carefully from now on. He is clearly a sore loser, and despite being a great manager, he was outclassed by another brilliant manager in the tie, in Diego Simeone. He deserves respect for that, and Klopp refused to give it to him.