EXTRA SPECIAL REDS
Liverpool refuse to lose and keep quad dream alive with FA Cup win
THERE were times during Manchester United’s Treblewinning season of 1998-99 when their road to greatness seemed preordained. Sometimes, winning becomes such a habit for a side that it feels as if an unseen force is making them invincible. It felt like that when Peter Schmeichel saved a late penalty from Dennis Bergkamp in the FA Cup semi-final replay between United and Arsenal. It felt like that when United scored twice in two minutes to beat Bayern Munich at the end of the Champions League final in Barcelona.
And as the last of the day’s spring sunshine sunk behind Wembley’s steepling stands in north west London, it felt the same way as we watched Liverpool vanquish Chelsea in the 150th Anniversary FA Cup Final. When Sadio Mane missed the spot-kick that would have won them the game in the shootout, other teams would have folded. Not this Liverpool team.
Somehow they find a way to win. Even when adversity accosts them. Like that great United team, they are not cowed by adversity. It seems to motivate them. And so their epic quest for a Quadruple, an improbable journey that has come to dominate this English football season the longer it has progressed, lives on and carries them forwards towards the challenges that remain.
Instead of shrinking when Edouard Mendy saved Mane’s penalty, they stepped up. It is what they do. Alisson saved Mason Mount’s kick to give Kostas Tsimikas the chance to seal victory with the 14th penalty. Tsimikas sent Mendy the wrong way and Liverpool’s impossible dream had survived.
They have won two trophies this season now, the Carabao Cup Final and the FA Cup Final, both against Chelsea, both on penalties. They were clinging on to the dream for dear life by the end, battered and bruised, depleted and exhausted, rocked by losing both Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk to injuries during a sapping, relentless contest. But they hung on.
And so a Double is theirs already after this game that had ended 0-0 after 120 minutes, but the two most important trophies remain. Liverpool have only an outside chance of overhauling Manchester City at the top of the Premier League and quite what sort of team they will field at Southampton on Tuesday night remains to be seen.
And then there is the small matter of a Champions League Final against Real Madrid in Paris a fortnight from now. Madrid will have been encouraged to see Liverpool’s players suffering in the heat here but these are Jurgen Klopp’s ‘mentality monsters’ and so far they have point-blank refused to be vanquished. Who knows what they may yet conjure.
This was not a classic final even if the occasion, 150 years after Wanderers played Royal Engineers at the Kennington Oval, craved it. It did not lend itself to a nickname although Alisson was as close as it gave us to a hero, producing several crucial saves during the game and saving the critical penalty from Mount to allow Tsimikas his moment. It will not be remembered like the White Horse Final or even the White Suit Final. If anything, it was the Anti-Establishment Final. Before the start, the Liverpool fans had booed Abide With Me, then they had booed Prince William and then they had booed the National Anthem. ‘What are you rebelling against, Johnny?’ they ask Marlon Brando’s character in The Wild One. ‘Whaddaya got?’ he replies.
At the end, of course, rebellion gave way to celebration. What a result this was for Klopp, too. He is already established in the pantheon of great Liverpool managers but this win brought him a landmark no one else has achieved with the club. Neither Bill Shankly, nor Bob Paisley, nor Kenny Dalglish, nor Rafa Benitez won all four major trophies on offer to English clubs but this win in his first appearance in English football’s showpiece achieved that for Klopp. One Quadruple has been conquered.
Liverpool had nearly opened the scoring in the fourth minute when Luis Diaz ran at Reece James on the right edge of the Chelsea box, stole a yard of freedom and whipped the ball across the face of goal. Thiago Alcantara threw himself at it as if he were attempting a flying karate kick but he could not quite reach it. A minute later, another Diaz cross eluded both Mane and Salah as they tried to apply a finishing touch.
Liverpool were rampant. Chelsea were being overrun. Trent Alexander-Arnold played a magnificent defence-splitting pass through to Diaz, who advanced on goal and tried to slide the ball under Mendy. Mendy slowed the pace of the shot with his legs and as the ball dawdled towards the goal, Trevoh Chalobah sprinted back and hacked it away before Salah could tap in.
Chelsea searched for respite. They tried to stop the bleeding. They tried to stop Chalobah being so mercilessly exposed on the right flank. They tried to stop Diaz being given the freedom of Wembley. And gradually they began to find a foothold. They even created a chance midway through the half when Mount turned a cross into the box and Christian Pulisic clipped it
just wide. A few minutes later, Chelsea should have been ahead. Pulisic was the creator this time, advancing in space towards the edge of the Liverpool box and slipping a neat through ball into the path of Marcos Alonso. The Spaniard’s first touch was poor and it allowed Alisson time to come out to narrow the angle and block the shot. The Brazil goalkeeper needed treatment after colliding with Alonso as he made the save.
Worse was to come for Liverpool. A couple of minutes later Salah went down in the centre circle to receive treatment for what looked like a groin injury. It soon became apparent he would not be able to carry on and he walked disconsolately to the sideline to be replaced by Diogo Jota. His demeanour was not that of a man who feared his season was over but with so much to play for his injury was a worry.
Liverpool were deflated by his withdrawal and Chelsea started to look like the superior team but on the stroke of half-time Klopp’s men wasted another chance. Andrew Robertson was the provider this
time, chipping a ball to the near post to Jota, who had escaped his marker. Jota only had Mendy to beat but he volleyed his shot high over the bar.
Romelu Lukaku fired over in first-half stoppage time but it felt as if he was not asking nearly enough questions of Van Dijk at the heart of the Liverpool defence. And when Chelsea started the second half strongly,
the danger to Klopp’s side came from elsewhere. First Alonso dragged a shot just wide after a cross eluded Alexander-Arnold at the back post, then Alisson saved well from Pulisic before a vicious, dipping free-kick by Alonso beat Alisson but cannoned off the crossbar.
The game swung one way then the other. Both teams had periods when they were on top without creating clear-cut chances. As Chelsea pressed for the opener, so Liverpool seemed to enjoy hitting them on the counter-attack.
Mount fired wide for Chelsea, Alexander-Arnold made a crucial last-ditch interception when Pulisic seemed to be through, Diaz pulled a shot wide of Mendy’s right-hand post and James was shown the first yellow card of the game for a late tackle on Thiago.
Extra-time began to beckon but eight minutes from the end Liverpool hit the post twice. First Diaz blasted a shot off the outside of the upright and then second-half sub James Milner curled a cross to the back post where it was met on the volley by Robertson but his effort cannoned off the other post.
As the fourth official walked to the touchline to hold up the board showing the number of minutes added on, Diaz broke free one more time down the Liverpool left and tested the pace of Thiago Silva to its limit. Then Diaz checked and turned inside his man. He measured his shot and curled it towards the far corner. The stadium held its breath, waiting for the net to ripple. It sailed wide.
Both sides began to feel the pace and the heat in extra-time. Van Dijk was substituted before it began. He was said to be not moving freely. Their defence stood firm. A teasing cross from Hakim Ziyech was a test for Alexander-Arnold but he hooked it clear at the back post as a forward waited to pounce.
Robertson, who had run himself into the ground as usual, began to limp in the second half of extra-time and was substituted. The attrition rate went up. Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who had been brought on at half-time of extra-time, was substituted in the last minute so Ross Barkley, a penalty-taker, could replace him.
The penalties were taken in front of the Chelsea fans and Alonso was the first to step up and the first to score, sending Alisson the wrong way. But after Milner had scored for Liverpool, Cesar Azpilicueta hit the post. Thiago, Roberto Firmino and Alexander-Arnold scored the rest of Liverpool’s penalties and it was left to Mane to administer the coup de grace.
It did not happen. Mendy dived low to his left and pushed the shot away. At the other end, Liverpool fans had thrown a red smoke bomb on to the pitch in premature celebration. Now it was sudden death. Ziyech scored, then Jota scored before Alisson saved from Mount to give Tsimikas the chance to be the hero. He took it.