Not all defeats are created equal – and no defeat in football is worse than a mock one.
“In extra-time, it was Klopp’s boys against the blue-billion-pound bottle jobs,” said Sky Sports co-commentator Gary Neville, succinctly and unequivocally establishing the dominant narrative of a surreal Carabao Cup final almost as soon as Virgil’s header van Dyck. he had settled into the far corner of George Petrovic’s net.
Liverpool hadn’t just beaten Chelsea at Wembley (again), they had done so in a way that confirmed the culture of ‘monster mentality’ that Jurgen Klopp has cultivated – apparently across all age groups at Kirkby as well as the first team – against for the past nine years, while relentlessly exposing the fatal flaws in the lavish investment project at Stamford Bridge funded by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital over the past two.
In the bowels of Wembley after the match, a despondent Mauricio Pochettino wearily took on the task of pointing out the nuance in the narrative. “I can’t hear what he said, but if you compare the age of the two teams, I think they’re similar,” the Chelsea manager said when asked about Neville’s line. “Look, I have a good relationship with Gary. I don’t know how I can get his opinion, but I respect his opinion.
“We are a young team. Nothing to compare with Liverpool because they also ran out of young players. It’s impossible to compare, and he knows the dynamics are completely different. We were playing Liverpool and Chelsea, Chelsea and Liverpool and I don’t think it’s fair to talk that way.”
The dynamic of youth versus experience at Wembley was not as clear as Neville. Liverpool’s home line-up had an older average age than Chelsea’s at the start of the match and at the start of extra time. Van Dijk, a 32-year-old now with 11 major trophies to his name, was the outfield player throughout and found the net with two headers worthy of winning a final, only one of which survived VAR review.
Cole Palmer is denied by Caoimhin Kelleher (Julian Feeney/Getty Images)
But the counter-argument becomes hard to make when the other team includes two 19-year-olds, Bobby Clark and James McConnell, who have played fewer than 10 professional games each and another (Jayden Danns) making his second senior appearance. Chelsea have undoubtedly lost out on a lot of lads. the more important question is: did they bottle it?
Chelsea showed unmistakable signs of nerves at Wembley. Axel Dassey twice sparked Liverpool’s transition attacks by dribbling the ball under little pressure. Malo Gusto, usually so confident, controlled passes out of play on several occasions. Levi Colwill attempted a pass to Ben Chilwell miles up the pitch and had to be told to calm down by Enzo Fernandez, who was playing sloppy passes with surprising frequency.
Further forward, Conor Gallagher battled an eerily similar cocktail of bad luck and bad temper in front of goal that plagued fellow Cobham graduate Mason Mount against the same opponents at the same stadium in 2022.
Gallagher left plenty of chances (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Still, as the clock ticked towards the end of the 90 minutes, Chelsea looked more like winners, with Cole Palmer picking apart a Liverpool side whose legs seemed to have gone. It was at this point that Klopp made a decision that arguably no other elite manager would have made: to put the fate of a major trophy in the hands of unproven youngsters rather than fall back on experience and play penalties.
His selection turned this Carabao Cup final into the spiritual sequel to Chelsea’s strange 4-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur in November: a situation where convincing victory is the only acceptable result and anything less brings complete humiliation. Pochettino had to guide his team through 20 nervous, pointless minutes that night before overcoming the fear of looking ridiculous – of accepting a ridiculous defeat – and going on to win the game.
Klopp’s own “it’s just who we are, man” moment appeared to plunge Chelsea into a similar mental crisis at Wembley that lasted for most of extra time, coupled with their low energy levels. At half-time of their dismal Test performance in extra time, Chilwell, Disasi and Moises Caicedo all look prostrate on the pitch and are being treated for cramp.
Not losing the replacement win as Chelsea’s top priority. “The team started to feel that maybe the penalties will do us good,” Pochettino said, admitting the weakness he has against himself and this group of players in the nasty aftermath.
Pochettino’s face sums up Chelsea’s mood (Getty Images)
The finals define the clubs, players and coaches who compete in them. Klopp has lost his share over the years, but never through passivity, and that ironclad commitment to the idea of who Liverpool will be on Wembley day. Chelsea’s identity as special finals winners began to slip away in the final years of Roman Abramovich’s ownership. That’s now seven cup final defeats in their last eight visits to the national stadium, and six in a row.
Doubts about Pochettino’s ability to reverse this trend will only intensify. In five years at Tottenham, he built impressive teams that failed to win and despite his avowed emphasis on the power of positive energy, Chelsea were undone by Klopp’s unparalleled mastery of psychological momentum.
Liverpool at full strength are far better than Chelsea, but they won the Carabao Cup final not through superior talent, but superior mentality, combined with an undeniable sense of identity linking the first team and the academy together – in other words, things Boehly and Clearlake money just can’t buy.
“They have to feel the pain,” Pochettino said of his Chelsea players. The pain of this bad loss will be hard to shift, immortalized by Neville’s brutal words.
(Top image: Pochettino’s changes haven’t been as effective as Klopp’s. Photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
