Fake it to make it - how Jurgen Klopp rebounded to another final

Recovery from 2018 Champions League final defeat began with Liverpool’s manager and an old friend drowning their sorrows

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp using a mug with The Normal One on it during a press conference as part of a media day at the AXA Training Centre in Liverpool ahead of the UEFA Champions League Final in Paris on Saturday. Picture date: Wednesday May 25, 2022.

There were tears, there was a fake trophy presentation with Steven Gerrard’s vase and a famous German singer lay in the rain outside Jürgen Klopp’s home after Liverpool last encountered Real Madrid in a Champions League final. It goes without saying that the Liverpool manager wants a different ending in Paris. But as a starting point for the recovery of a team that could win a second Champions League in four seasons on Saturday, there is a strong, sozzled case to be made for those moments in Formby on the morning of 27 May 2018.

Liverpool would prefer to forget the 3-1 defeat in Kyiv the night before – Sergio Ramos, Mohamed Salah, Salt Bae, Lorius Karius and Gareth Bale is a sufficient recap – and the morning after might have gone the same way for Klopp but for a video of him partying with the lead singer of Die Toten Hosen going viral.