Liverpool’s magical kids beat the walking pay-packets
IF you want to know about the magic of the cup, bottle this. If you want to know why football is about more than moneyballers and algorithms and xG, bottle this. If you want to know why sometimes, football is about hope and optimism and spirit and youth, not the weight of a player’s pay-packet, bottle this.
Liverpool vs Chelsea at Wembley yesterday might only have been the Carabao Cup final, the second of England’s domestic knock-out competitions, but it is hard to think there will be anything to match the triumph of Liverpool’s team of kids over Chelsea’s terminally self-satisfied billion-pound squad for the rest of this season and maybe next as well.
The kids were more than all right. Kids from St Helens and Warrington and Sunderland and Surrey, marshalled by a giant in Virgil van Dijk. Kids who were in the team because Mohamed Salah, Darwin Nunez, Trent Alexander-Arnold and a phalanx of Liverpool’s best players were out injured.
Kids so young that Alan Shearer remarked he had played against some of their dads. Kids who made this look like a team Liverpool might turn out in the FA Youth Cup. Kids such as Conor Bradley, Bobby Clark, James McConnell, Jayden Danns and Jarell Quansah who stepped up and did themselves and their club proud, as they beat the World Cup winners and walking pay-packets on the other team.
Even when their goal was under siege and Chelsea were wasting chances as readily as their owners waste dollars, Liverpool’s kids would not fold.
Chelsea may never have a better chance to win a cup. But just when they seemed to have Liverpool at their mercy, they shrank. They were playing Liverpool’s B team for the chance to try to salvage at least a little pride from this annus horribilis. And they still blew it.
And so Liverpool’s young players and their colossus of a captain, Van Dijk — man of the match and match-winner — delivered the sternest rebuke yet to a club that have spent money like they were throwing mud at the walls and are still paying the price.
There were times in the second half, as Jurgen Klopp threw more and more youngsters into the fray, when it seemed that Chelsea would overrun them.
AND yet, even with the two most expensive players in British transfer history — Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez — in midfield, they could not break the spirit of their opponents, who embodied all that is best about the adventure and faith in youth of Klopp.
The preponderance of young players in the Liverpool team felt symbolic. Klopp is leaving Anfield in the summer and the abandon with which he trusted youth here was a sign of his intent to bequeath the club the healthiest of futures.
They have one trophy under their belt now, with three more to play for. The Quadruple is still on.
It was a Liverpool great, Alan Hansen, who once said, ‘You can’t win anything with kids’. Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United’s Class of 92 proved him wrong once. Yesterday at Wembley, Liverpool proved him wrong again.
So if you ever want to bottle the magic of the cup, watch a re-run of this. Watch how Liverpool’s kids kept fighting. Watch how Van Dijk marshalled them, and how he saw one goal harshly disallowed before coming back and scoring again to win the game deep in extra time.
This was a victory for brilliant management over the complacency of Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly. This was the new Chelsea’s greatest embarrassment yet.
As Klopp burnishes his legend, so Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino still searches for his first trophy in English football. This was a crushing defeat for him. Chelsea host Leeds in the FA Cup fifth round on Wednesday night, knowing defeat would bring about a premature end to their season.
There are, worryingly, signs they have not yet learned any humility in the midst of their mediocrity. In one newspaper article yesterday, it was revealed they had constructed ‘modelling based on underlying performance factors that suggests they should be fifth in the Premier League, rather than 10th’.
Really? It sounds nice until reality intrudes. Actually, poor Chelsea may have started the Carabao Cup final 10th in the table but they finished it 11th after Wolves’ win over Sheffield United.
Despite being severely depleted, Liverpool started the final more brightly. Alexis Mac Allister stung the hands of Djordje Petrovic from distance and then, when Axel Disasi slipped on the edge of the area, Cody Gakpo fed Luis Diaz and his fierce shot brought a fine save from the Chelsea goalkeeper.
Liverpool swarmed all over Chelsea, forcing them into errors. Disasi, so impressive in Chelsea’s recent draw at Manchester City, was especially culpable.
Liverpool restricted Chelsea to the occasional counter-attack. But Chelsea still posed a threat and midway through the half they should have taken the lead. Conor Gallagher, their best player by a distance, curled a ball in from the right and as Raheem Sterling tried to control it, the ball bounced off Bradley into the path of Cole Palmer a few yards out. It looked like a certain goal.
Palmer is a nerveless finisher and made good contact with the ball with his left foot. Caoimhin Kelleher flung himself to his left and blocked the shot with his left arm before it was hacked clear. Palmer put his head in his hands.
Chelsea were lucky not to be reduced to 10 men when Caicedo buckled the ankle of Ryan Gravenberch with a late tackle that left the midfielder writhing before he was carried off on a stretcher. Caicedo escaped without a booking. Bradley was moved further forward to the right of Liverpool’s front three.
The game was opening up. Both teams stretched their opposing defences and, after Sterling had a goal ruled out for offside, Gakpo glanced a cross from Andrew
Robertson against the post. The tempo was quickening.
There were interesting individual battles everywhere, not least between Joe Gomez, who replaced Gravenberch, and Sterling. The two men have previous after an altercation on England duty but kept their emotions in check here.
Liverpool thought they had taken the lead after an hour when Van Dijk rose majestically to meet a free-kick swung deep to the back post by Robertson. His header beat the dive of Petrovic and Liverpool’s players celebrated riotously in front of their fans.
But as smoke from flares turned the air red, VAR intervened and replays showed Wataru Endo had
been in an offside position when the kick was taken and blocked Levi Colwill, impeding the Chelsea defender’s ability to mark Van Dijk. The goal was disallowed.
Chelsea were buoyed by their escape and came close to taking the lead themselves when a corner was flicked on at the near post and it flew to Disasi one yard out at the back post.
It felt as if he needed only to touch it to score but the ball was slightly behind him and at knee height. It ballooned up off Disasi’s thigh and sailed in a lazy arc into the grateful arms of Kelleher.
Liverpool were tiring. Palmer was growing in influence and slid a pass into the box that Gallagher met beautifully with a delicate glance. Kelleher watched it hurtle past him but instead of finding the far corner, it rebounded off the face of the post to safety.
Chelsea pressed for the winner. Palmer, again, was the prompter. He advanced down the right and saw Gallagher sprinting clear. Palmer cut inside and found him with a perfectly weighted pass. It felt like Chelsea’s moment but Kelleher hared off his line and smothered Gallagher’s strike.
Gallagher curled another shot just wide and at that point Klopp decided he had to refresh his side’s legs. Danns, McConnell and Clark all came on.
Chelsea were overrunning them now. There was one spell, as the match headed for extra time, when Klopp’s side made a succession of quick-fire blocks. First Christopher Nkunku’s shot was blocked, then Kelleher stuck out a boot to turn away another effort from Malo Gusto and finally, Gallagher’s bouncing shot fell into the goalkeeper’s hands.
YET again, a final between these two bled into extra time. Liverpool summoned another effort from somewhere. Petrovic tipped a header from Danns over the bar and Harvey Elliott should have scored when he ran on to a pass from Diaz, but the midfielder pulled his volley into the side-netting.
Liverpool fashioned one more chance five minutes from the end when Elliott rose alone at the back post and speared a header low down at the feet of Petrovic. The Serb got down to it brilliantly and kept it out with his left foot before clutching the ball at the last moment.
Then, with two minutes left, Van Dijk rose again. Kostas Tsimikas curled in a corner and Van Dijk got to it ahead of Mykhailo Mudryk and glanced it beyond the despairing reach of Petrovic.
Chelsea will retreat into their algorithms. Presumably, at some point, their number-crunchers will construct modelling that shows they won the Carabao Cup final after all. The trophy, though, belongs to Liverpool.