First-half strikes from Vinicius Junior and Marco Asensio put Real ahead at the break, before Mohamed Salah grabbed an away goal for the Reds in the early stages of the second period.
But Vinicius restored the hosts’ two-goal cushion with 65 minutes on the clock, and Zinedine Zidane’s side hold the upper hand heading into next Wednesday’s second leg at Anfield.
Read on for a transcript of Klopp’s post-match press conference, or watch it below…
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On Liverpool getting an away goal and whether Sadio Mane was fouled shortly before Real’s second goal…
First and foremost, and that’s most important, I think we didn’t deserve to win tonight. We didn’t play good enough for that and that’s maybe my first concern [and] what I think about. Especially in the first half, we didn’t play good enough football. We pressed them kind of OK, they were under pressure, they had to shoot a lot of long balls without a proper target, we won these balls but we gave these balls pretty much with the second pass away again. That didn’t help. A game is a summary of momentum if you want, and when we had this good momentum and we won the ball, we changed that immediately by giving the ball away. Football is a game where mistakes are completely normal, but you have to make the mistakes in the right spaces. If you do that, you can win the ball back by counter-pressing and stuff like this. But when you, in completely unexpected situations, pass the ball to the feet of the opponent, that’s then tricky.
So, we conceded the first goal, obviously served the second on a plate, but that was not the real problem of the game… second half we did better, we played better football, we tried to create. It’s then obviously very difficult against a really passionate and deep-defending Real Madrid side with the counter-attacking threat they are. But we score our goal, which is obviously the positive – the positive – of the night and that’s how it is. Did we deserve more than the 3-1? I’m not sure, to be honest. The situation with Sadio, I have to say, what the ref did tonight I don’t understand. For me that was something personal because he did deal with the situation from Sadio, which is a clear foul, like it was a dive or whatever and from that moment on whenever Sadio went down he didn’t get anything anymore, and that’s just not right. That’s what I told him after the game, that I just thought he was unfair with Sadio and that’s how it is. But that doesn’t change anything at all. He didn’t lose the game, we were not good enough to get a better result.
On whether Naby Keita’s first-half substitution was tactical or due to an injury…
It was tactical, it was tactical. That’s now things I don’t like in the job, stuff like this. You do that and then it’s like the one player is responsible for the performance of the first half. Naby was not responsible for that. He didn’t play for a while, especially not from the start, and these kind of things. We were not good in the game, Naby was not good in the game but we all saw the game so, to be honest, I could have made a few more changes in that moment. So it was not about Naby but I did it and I am now not happy about it because we talk about it like it was Naby’s responsibility. It was not. But it was tactical, that’s it.
On whether Trent Alexander-Arnold will learn from his mistake in the build-up to Real’s second goal…
Yeah, of course. It is the situation. These kind of mistakes don’t happen just all of a sudden, they have all a little history before and a little story after that, and stuff like this. So, I didn’t like our game in the first half. We were just not really in the game, that’s our mistake and that’s where we have to be really clear in our self-criticism, to be honest. Then something like this can happen: we judge the situation wrong, we want to pass the ball back to the goalie… in that moment it was Trent with the header, but in other moments we just gave them the opportunity to use the speed they have for going in behind too easily by losing the balls in the completely wrong moment. Because when you analyse Real Madrid, all the natural individual quality they have, a lot of things are really switching the sides and accelerating [and] passing the ball in behind. They have three of the best midfielders in the world [who have] obviously played together since it feels like 20 years. If they win the ball then Modric and especially Kroos, and Casemiro, they chip the balls there and then you are under pressure and you don’t know where the striker is because they run around. These mistakes can happen. That’s not my problem of the game because these kind of things can happen against Real Madrid, but if you only lose one ball it could happen – but we lost too many. That is my story and if you want to go to the semi-finals, and that’s absolutely OK and fair, you have to deserve it with the performance you put on the pitch and tonight we were not good enough to win this game. The only good news is there is another game, but it’s not like we have an advantage now. We are under pressure of course and we have to show we can deal with that.
On managing the challenge of chasing the top four in the Premier League and trying to come back in this tie…
We cannot be picky with that, we have to go for everything. It’s not like we can now make the decision after that game there is no chance for us in the Champions League anymore. In the Premier League, we cannot change it every week – we have to fight until the end and we will. Tonight, this is a really good result for Real Madrid and it’s not that we have any kind of advantage, but with each day and each minute that will go over until the next game the 3-1 will not be that good anymore for Real Madrid and not that bad anymore for us because there is, of course, a chance. But, we have to play much better football [and] we cannot get it like tonight. For example, a few years ago when we played against Barcelona and lost 3-0, we played a super game. That’s a massive difference and tonight we didn’t but we can play much better and we can be much more uncomfortable to play against than we were tonight and that’s what we have to make sure next week. Now we have to recover first and then concentrate on Aston Villa, which is for us a very important game, not only because of the results we had recently or in this season against them.
On Liverpool’s game-plan tonight…
That’s how it is when you lose a game, you have to face all the criticism and I have no problem with that. I saw a lot of good pressing situations, to be honest. You know when Real Madrid is forced to play long balls onto the chests of our centre-halves without a striker around, that’s a good situation. You cannot win these balls always where you want to win it. The problem was then that we gave the ball away too easily. For a really good game you have to gain this really good feeling step by step by step and we never had that in the first half. It never felt really right for us, I don’t think we had a shot on target in the first half, which is not a good sign for a football game and that’s the problem that we didn’t get through. Half-time, very important, have a break, get the chance for a restart – that’s what we tried to do. We scored this one goal and we were then better in the game, much better in the game. We were not superior or whatever, but we were much better in the game and could have scored a second one and that would have been great for us. It wouldn’t make the first half better but it would have made the result better. That’s the situation now. With all the problems we had tonight, Real Madrid had to score at least one goal with us giving the goal away and the other goals were because of mistakes from us as well. That’s the situation and if we don’t make these mistakes and if we play better football, both of which we can do, then it is a new game and we will see how the result will be then.
On playing the return at Anfield without supporters present to give them their backing…
Of course, it is completely different. Completely different. If you want to have some emotional memories, then you watch the Barcelona game back and 80 per cent of this game was the atmosphere in the stadium. So, yes, we have to do it without that. But it is not that I sit here and think, ‘Comebacks are our thing, we do it all the time.’ We did from time to time but we always had supporters in the stadium. We don’t have that this time so I don’t know if we can do it, but I can promise you we will give it a proper try. The boys really wanted [it] but today in the first half we couldn’t for whatever reason and we didn’t, so that’s what we have to find out, to change and then to go again. That’s all. It must be a really tricky task for Real Madrid at Anfield with or without supporters. This here tonight was really strange, it was really difficult, a different situation with the stadium, but Anfield is at least a proper stadium and that will be good for us.