Klopp revels in Liverpool's 'insane' League Cup triumph
Virgil van Dijk's header with two minutes left in extra-time sealed Liverpool's first trophy since Klopp's bombshell announcement that he will leave at the end of this season. It was a remarkable success given Klopp was forced to turn to Liverpool's youth academy graduates after a series of injuries had deprived him of Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Diogo Jota, Darwin Nunez, Alisson Becker and Joel Matip among others.
While Liverpool's experienced captain bagged the winner, Van Dijk would not have been able to finish as the hero without the contributions of Klopp's kids. Klopp started with 20-year-olds Conor Bradley and Harvey Elliott before introducing Bobby Clark (19), James McConnell (19), Jayden Danns (18) and Jarell Quansah (21) from the bench.
"What happened here is absolutely insane. These things are not possible, what an academy full of character, it's unbelievable what happened," Klopp said. "I'm so proud that I could be part of that, wow. We deserve it, we had lucky moments they had lucky moments and the boys showed up, it was really cool.
"I'm pretty sure when we brought on all the kids people thought 'OK that's it now, they give up, they have a game on Wednesday' but that was really not the case. We thought we need fresh legs and the fresh legs were fresh but very young. They did the job."
Liverpool had the most teenagers in a League Cup final since Arsenal in 2007. And Klopp said Liverpool's success with such a depleted and untried line-up was due to the hard work done to prepare his youngsters for their big moment.
"The boys have trained for a long time with us, they know exactly what we have to do. They are a pain, to be honest, that is what you have to be in these moments," he said.
Liverpool's injury
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