KARIUS’ CAREER IN TATTERS AFTER CUP BLUNDERS
Nick Said
Gareth Bale’s wonder goal for Real Madrid in their 3-1 UEFA Champions League final victory over Liverpool should be the most remembered moment of the game, but it is likely that the two mistakes by Reds goalkeeper Loris Karius will live much longer in Liverpool fans’ memories. Karius’ errors on the biggest club stage are likely to haunt him for the rest of his career and probably the rest of his life. The goalkeeping position has been the source of much debate at Liverpool for a number of seasons, with neither Karius nor his rival Simon Mignolet providing the consistency needed in the jersey. But few would have expected the kind of horrendous errors that the German produced in the world’s biggest club fixture, which left him sobbing at the end of the game and seeking forgiveness from Liverpool fans.
“Today I lost my team the game and I feel sorry for everyone. I’m sorry for everyone - from the team, from the whole club - that the mistakes cost dearly. If I could go back in time, I would. I feel sorry for my team. I know I let them down today,” he said.
It has led to a torrent of abuse and death threats on social media platforms. The nicest comments are along the lines of “Karius set a new bar for being the worst keeper of all time”, while other tweets like “The amount of disgusting tweets I’ve seen tonight. You should NEVER wish anyone dead! Not cool .... Karius may have had a bad game, but does NOT deserve to die” highlighted the depths of the abuse.
Should he still be at the club next season, his every move will be under the microscope, providing incredible pressure in a position that is already perhaps the most mentally taxing in the team.
Karius was a junior with Manchester City, but returned to Germany with Mainz without playing a first team game for the Citizens.
He spent five seasons in the Bundesliga before Klopp brought him to Anfield at the start of the 2016-17 campaign, where he has been in a seesaw battle with Mignolet for a starting position.
It is perhaps telling over Klopp’s uncertainty in this regard that both Karius and Mignolet played in 19 of the club’s 38 league games this season, with the former preferred mostly in the second half of the campaign.
The 24-year-old Karius was born in Biberach an der Riss in Southern Germany, and played for several local sides before being invited to the youth academy of Manchester City after they had scouted him in a Germany under-16 international fixture.
He has played at every age-group level for Germany up to the under-21s, but has yet to make a senior national team appearance.
His best professional season was the 2015-16 Bundesliga campaign when he was named the second-best keeper in Germany behind Bayern Munich stalwart Manuel Neuer as he helped Mainz to an unlikely sixth place in the league.
Whether he can recover from Saturday night only time will tell, but it may well spell the end of his career.