Liverpool 1-0 Flamengo: Jürgen Klopp's reaction
Jürgen Klopp was left beaming with pride after watching his Liverpool side be crowned 2019 FIFA Club World Cup champions in Doha on Saturday.
The Reds defeated Brazilian side Flamengo 1-0 in the final at Khalifa International Stadium thanks to Roberto Firmino's strike in the first half of extra-time.
That goal ensured Klopp's men became the first side in the club's illustrious history to win the competition.
Read on for a summary of the manager's post-match press conference…
On how it feels to be world champions...
It's great, really great. We are all kind of all exhausted from a really intense game. We had a few moments in the past when I really struggle to find the right words in not my native language for describing my respect for the boys, how they do it. It's incredible, it was an incredible performance in an incredibly difficult game against a good opponent. But we did so many good things it's unbelievable, so many good football moments. Everybody was for different reasons on the edge pretty much but I saw so many sensationally good performances and I'm really happy of course for our supporters. The atmosphere in the stadium was great, Flamengo supporters had the whole week a party week here and unfortunately maybe they cannot celebrate that much, but they should be proud of what they did and what their team did. But I think we deserved to win tonight, we were the better side. In some moments we had a really good goalie and in all the other moments we were the dominant team. I'm really happy.
On what winning the Club World Cup means for this team...
A wonderful night for us, the club, for everybody who is with us. There are always things, of course, that are not so positive because it was not the last game of the season and Oxlade-Chamberlain got injured in one situation. We play in five days again, so that's a tough period. But the boys – game after game after game – they really show their desire to make the next step, show their desire to win the next game, show their desire to win the next challenge and I'm really happy about that. Where it will lead us? I have no idea. For tonight, we couldn't do more than winning this game, winning it the first time for this wonderful club, the Club World Cup. I said before the game I don't know exactly how it would feel. Now I can say it's outstanding, absolutely sensational. I'm so proud of the boys and it couldn't be better.
On his thoughts about the game...
I think in possession we did a lot stuff Flamengo didn't like. We played from like a defensive 4-4-2 system, they changed slightly and did Everton in the centre more and for that another player played the wing. But with the step-ins of our centre-halves, it made life difficult for them to defend these things. Joe Gomez, Virgil van Dijk stepped in midfield, could pass the ball on the wing and that's then difficult. You have to defend at your best to defend these situations. But how I said, it was a very intense game. For different reasons it was not our best game we ever played, but it was more than good enough to deserve the win tonight for 120 minutes unfortunately – but even that is absolutely OK. We spoke a lot about what it means for European teams to win this competition and now we are here. If you really want to win it we have to show that to everybody and I think my players showed that from the first second, that's the most important thing.
From a tactical point of view, I have to watch the game again, but I just think we were the better team. Physically, both teams suffered tonight and maybe the extra-time was slightly fresher or whatever. The goalie of Flamengo had cramp and that shows they had a lot of games. I couldn't respect them more. The season they played is exceptional, absolutely exceptional. But tonight it was not that, tonight it was about better decision-making in decisive moments and try to win the game. We did that and I'm really happy with that.
On the week in Qatar...
If we wouldn't have played the semi-final here then we would have played against Aston Villa one day earlier. If we wouldn't have played tonight here, we would have played at West Ham, so same number of games and situation. The difference here is the climate, even if when it was not as warm as probably Europeans would've expected in the moment, is still something we have to adapt to. You could see that in each session it's just different. We are used to different weather conditions and that was difficult for other teams and for us as well. But that's the only thing that is special. Apart from that, we had the same number of games like we would have had at home. We will play the West Ham game – we don't know it yet – but in any point in the New Year and that will be then tough to find a moment for when we can play that game. But until then we will not think about that. We have the same number of games like Leicester had and Man City had and other teams had, so all good. We have to make sure that we come home safely and then recover in the plane if possible and then prepare the Leicester game.
On Firmino's contribution to the team...
The best thing about our three boys up there and all the others, if one is not scoring then the other one is scoring or the other two are scoring. Divock Origi, for example, and nobody is talking about him, scored incredibly important goals. Xherdan Shaqiri has scored incredibly important goals last year or set them up. Mo Salah scores for us an incredible number of goals, all of them very important, but not always. Then Sadio is stepping up and scores incredibly important goals. Now here, we needed obviously Bobby's goal and here they are. I couldn't be more happy for him that he could score that goal because before the game we spoke about a lot about what this competition means to Brazil, to South American people and especially Brazilian people. And we have two Brazilians and he's one of them. It means the world to him and it helped us a lot. On top of that, it was a sensational goal, completely calm. You see the last goal helped obviously to bring these things back and I'm really, really delighted for him.
Ref:liverpool.com
Ref:liverpool.com
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