Europa League semifinal: Liverpool 3-0 Villareal
Liverpool FC overcame the 1-0 deficit from the first leg to move on to the Finals against FC Sevilla and this team has won the last two Finals. Coach Klopp shares his view on magical night at Anfield
It was nice to watch and nice to be part of it; the whole performance, not from the first second [but] from 6.45pm when we drove through the road again. It’s nice. The first half-hour… what power! The will was obvious, I would say. Then for 15 minutes we lost a little bit of patience, that’s normal. We tried [to be] a little bit different and it made not too much sense. In the second half, [it was] back to the plan – still very emotional plus very smart, wonderful goals, well deserved.
On Daniel Sturridge’s performance…
A great game. You all see now when Daniel Sturridge is fit, he is an unbelievable striker. Everybody knows this but even he needs players to play with. I know about his quality. I knew it before I came here and now I know it better. [He is] a great player and it’s good to have him here.
On being alongside Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla in the European finals…
To be honest, I don’t care who is in the Champions League final. But that’s good. That was not a target for today, we only knew about it. Sevilla are a strong side. It was not my opinion but they were a little bit favourites in the tie against Donetsk. We have time. In the middle of May we will go there and we will try our best and try to do everything for this wonderful club.
On reaching the club’s first European final since 2007…
To go to a final you need a little bit of luck in decisive moments. But most of the time you need outstanding performances. When I came here, the tournament didn’t sound too nice for the people – three draws or something like that. It was a difficult group I thought and we came through with a nice game in Russia. That was good. We felt really comfortable in this tournament. We liked to go to different countries and adapt to different circumstances and temperatures. I like this in football. The problem was, around these games we had so many other games and so we couldn’t really be focused on this. I think, especially in 2016, the team has showed a lot of times what they are capable of and what they could be capable of in the future. That’s a really good sign. That’s more important for me as a manager. But then when you perform in the right moments like we did tonight, or against Dortmund or against United or Augsburg then you want to have more. That’s what we try now. Europe is big and a lot of teams want to go to finals, it’s not too easy. Now we are there. It’s a great opportunity and we will take it as an opportunity.
