Saturday 1 June 2019 21:26, UK
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has defended his "unlucky" record in cup finals ahead of his side's Champions League final against Tottenham.
Spanning back to his time in charge of Borussia Dortmund before he joined Liverpool in 2015, Klopp has lost at least one cup final in six of the previous seven seasons.
The most recent defeat came as Liverpool lost to Real Madrid in last year's Champions League final, but there are greater expectations upon the Premier League runners-up as they go up against a relatively-inexperienced Tottenham side in Madrid.
"If I would be the reason for losing six finals in a row, then everybody needs to worry really. So if that's not the case then we always have to have a chance and that's how we see it actually," Klopp said at his press conference on Friday.
"Since 2012, apart from 2017, I was with my team every year in the final. So we came there sometimes with luck in some moments, but most of the time because we had to go there, so I am probably in the moment world-record holder in the last seven years at least in winning semi-finals.
"I'm a normal human being, so if I would sit in the room and think it's all about me, I'm the reason, if I would see myself as a 'loser' or whatever, then we all would have a problem, but I don't see it like this.
"I think there can be moments that are lucky and unlucky and in the few finals I was part of we were never on the lucky side, it's true, but I cannot change that."
Klopp remains adamant there was little for Liverpool to learn from last year's 3-1 defeat to Real Madrid in Kiev due to the "strange" nature of the goals they conceded, with a stunning overhead kick by Gareth Bale accompanied by two goalkeeping errors from Loris Karius.
However, the German believes the experience acted as a catalyst for his side, which helped them return to the final, along with pushing Manchester City all the way in the Premier League title race.
"We learned a lot in the time since we are together, with a lot of players I am together three years, with some players for a year, and this year we learned a lot again," Klopp said.
"We are a completely different side to last year. So the final was not too important for our improvement.
"The final was like a starting point for the next steps. That's how we saw it, that's how we wanted to use it and that's what we did, but from the game we couldn't learn a lot to be honest."
