This courageous style of flawed but resolute football is a major hit

JURGEN Klopp usually takes a scattergun approach to answering the questions of journalists. Yet a telling line often lies among the mass of detail, and so it was before this semi-final.

“Football is as in life,” he told those who had dared to venture that Liverpool could relinquish their 5-2 first-leg lead over Roma. “If you are not ready to lose, you cannot win.”

Liverpool’s build-up to this second leg could only be described as difficult. The loss of Klopp’s assistant Zeljko Buvac was bizarre, the season-ending injury to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain cruel, Saturday’s draw with Stoke disappointing and the furore in Egypt over Mohamed Salah’s image rights unhelpful.

And then the well-being of Sean

Cox, the Liverpool supporter left in a medically-induced coma by Roman ultras last week. The 53-year-old’s condition more than cast a cloud over the occasion.

Yet plenty of Cox’s counterparts — approximately 5,000 travelling supporters — took heed of the warnings, followed the safety instructions and still arrived intent on backing a group of players they are falling in love with. Hardly George Cross fare, but still a decision that required a degree of courage, and courage that deserved to be reflected out on the pitch.

It would have been understandable if Klopp had instructed his players to play tight, composed football. Another team you may have heard of — Barcelona — tried to do just that here recently. Look how that turned out.

Would Liverpool do the same? It would be naive to even suggest so. Klopp’s side were forced to play deep given the nature of the occasion but they accepted every opportunity to break. Even after taking a lead, there was no let-up.

Oceans of space were afforded to a Roma team that needed goals and eventually found them, but not enough. Had Liverpool not sought to pounce in those opening stages, the Italians would be the ones travelling to Kiev for the final.

The bravery was also shown at the rear. There was Andrew Robertson (below) driving up the pitch in search of an assist then driving back down it with equal endeavour to prevent one. There was Sadio Mane rising for high and hung-up aerial balls that he was never likely to win, usually being clattered underneath his marker, but the next time rising again. There was Roberto Firmino seeming like three Roberto Firminos across the breadth of the pitch.

The nerve slipped a little in the second half but the ideals were not compromised. This is not football characterised by fear, nor total dominance. Instead, it is flawed but unflinching, sometimes imprecise and sometimes incisive. If you are not ready to lose, you cannot win.

In September, with a failing backline, Klopp said: “I never had one doubt about the system.” Those problems remain but have significantly receded, without an ounce of the devastating attacking potential lost.

There should be no doubt that this system, with its flaws, is a success. To paraphrase late playwright Arnold Wesker, Klopp’s men have shown the courage to go after a utopia and survive their failures.

It is that courage that has brought them within 90 minutes of what this club, since 1977, has considered its utopia: lifting the European Cup.