Juergen Klopp on Wednesday bemoaned Liverpool’s inability to turn dominance into goals as Real Madrid held out for a 0-0 draw at Anfield to progress to the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League 3-1 on aggregate.
Mohamed Salah and Georginio Wijnaldum were guilty of wasting glorious opportunities to get Klopp’s men back into the tie as they failed to replicate a remarkable recovery from 3-0 down to beat Barcelona 4-3 on aggregate at the semi-final stage two years ago.
“We didn’t lose the tie tonight. We lost it definitely in Madrid, but even if we drew there 0-0, we would probably still be playing because we didn’t score,” said Klopp, whose side faces a battle just to qualify for next season’s Champions League through a top-four finish in the Premier League.
Photo: AFP
“It’s a little bit ourselves this year. We had games here in the Premier League where we just don’t finish the situation often enough,” he said.
Madrid were far from their best, but did not need to be to set up a semi-final clash with Chelsea as Los Blancos extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to 14 games.
“We knew we had to suffer tonight, but in the end we got what we wanted, which was to go through,” Zinedine Zidane said.
“We knew they’d start fast and they were really good in the opening 15 minutes, but that’s normal. In the quarter-finals of the Champions League you have to dig in and we did that and got through,” he added.
Elsewhere, at the fifth time of asking, Pep Guardiola has guided Manchester City to a Champions League semi-final as they saw off Borussia Dortmund and the demons of previous quarter-final disappointments.
Attention turns to a semi-final clash with Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain that would be a meeting of two projects financed by Middle Eastern investment.
For all the money invested by City’s Abu Dhabi owners, it was a product of the club’s youth academy, Phil Foden, who came up with the goods as nerves frayed for Guardiola’s men.
Foden’s 90th-minute strike in last week’s first leg against Dortmund handed City a slender 2-1 lead to take to Germany.
However, that was canceled out by another burgeoning young English star when 17-year-old Jude Bellingham’s first Champions League goal gave a Dortmund a 1-0 lead on the night and the advantage in the tie on away goals.
As chances came and went before halftime, Guardiola would have been forgiven for having a fear of history repeating itself.
City have bowed out on away goals twice in his previous four seasons, while a combination of controversial refereeing calls and defensive mistakes cost them in three successive quarter-final exits to Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Olympique Lyonnais.
This time, though, City’s luck turned as a Foden cross was handled by Emre Can inside the box.
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