Win the Europa League and Liverpool could be ready for a golden era

There are two obvious pathways facing Liverpool as they head to Basel for the Europa League final, both going in vastly different directions. I’ll start with what winning the final against Sevilla would mean for the club.

A European trophy; a place in history for all those players and the sense they are at the beginning of a new era under one of the greatest coaches of his generation.

There would be such a buzz around the club and the city, the lads and supporters will already be counting down the days until pre-season and you can guarantee all the talk next August will be about what is next for Jurgen Klopp’s side - a possible title bid.

With the calibre of player they can attract, and Champions League qualification, there will be confidence Liverpool can challenge.

Then there is the darker road, the one none of us who love Liverpool want to contemplate. It is a second final defeat in a matter of months, disrupting the feelgood factor achieved in securing that flight to Switzerland, undermining the meaning of all those notable wins over Man Utd, Borussia Dortmund and Villarreal. Not just another year without a trophy, but no European competition at all next season.

That will have an impact on the quality of players Klopp can attract, the financial rewards for the club and the morale of the squad. Despite all the positives that would be taken from getting so far, there would be a hangover. There always is when you lose a game of this magnitude, but the difference between a memorable season and one that could take a long time to get over is immense.

This game feels a bit all or nothing for the season.

I know the contrasting emotions well, winning the UEFA Cup in 2001 and the Champions League in 2005, but suffering after losing to AC Milan in Athens in 2007.

Those European wins are among the highlights of my career, but they are also tinged with a bit of regret. In both 2001 and 2005 I came off the pitch saying they would be the catalysts for a new era of success for the club. We were given the perfect platform from which to go on and we never took it, especially after Istanbul.

If you’d have told me when I was on the open top bus tour holding our fifth European Cup that in the next eleven years Liverpool would only win the FA Cup and League Cup I would not have believed it.

I’m not writing off everything that has happened since. We came very close to winning far more than we did, losing finals, semi-finals and going very close to the Premier League title under Rafa Benitez and Brendan Rodgers. You look at the teams we were competing against and they were bloody good, assembled with massive wealth. For a long time after 2005 we re-established our name in Europe, reaching number one in the UEFA rankings.

There were great times, great performances, and Liverpool have always been there or thereabouts when it comes to major honours but there’s no getting away from the fact we did not win as much as we hoped or expected in the aftermath of Dortmund in 2001 and Istanbul in 2005.

In 2001 we had a fantastic team that only needed the addition of a couple of top class players but we bought badly and it went wrong.

By 2005 it was slightly different. We had a recently appointed, top class manager who won the biggest trophy in his first season, but there was more work to be done to get to the level of a side competing for a title and there were underlying problems at the club. We were trying to sort out the stadium situation and it was well known Liverpool was looking for new ownership.

Two years later we were back in the Champions League final in Athens, those new owners – Tom Hicks and George Gillett - had taken over with their stadium plans and were promising the biggest signings. Soon after that it all started to unravel at the top of the club and what should have been another period of success did not materialise. We came away from Athens in 2007 concerned about where the club was heading as much as excited by it.

Nine years on from the last European final, it feels Liverpool is in as stable a position as I can remember a while, with everything in place to build on success in a way we didn’t quite manage on those previous occasions.

There is a big difference between the Europa League Final and Champions League final - there is no getting away from that – but going into this game the foundations are back in place for Liverpool.

There are similarities to both the 2001 and 2005 season, but there are also notable differences. There is a manager who understands how to win in Europe, just like Gerard Houllier and Benitez, but the ownership situation is more stable and from next season Liverpool will finally be in that 54,000 stadium we’ve been waiting for. The club can kick on.

The difficult part – the most demanding challenge for any team and manager – is getting over that line and winning that first trophy.

I was interested in the statistic that on the eight occasions Liverpool reached the semi-final of a competition since 2006, we’ve only gone on to win the trophy once. We also finished runners-up in the league twice.

That tells me we’ve had good teams, great players and some fantastic victories but lacked that nous across the team to go that little bit further. In the 2001 side we had so much experience, so many players who knew what it took to get over the line who helped the youngsters along. We also had top class players on the bench who could make a difference when called upon. It was the same in 2005 and 2006.

In recent years, that strength in depth and experience was not there and too often there has been a setback at the wrong time. The manager is definitely a key part of that and I’ve said plenty of times before how I think Klopp will instil that belief into this current squad.

The Europa League can be the starting point. It is a competition that has been mocked in recent years, but Liverpool have done as much as anyone to transform perceptions of it. This competition has been massively disrespected and I am frustrated people have tried to knock it. When we won the UEFA Cup in 2001 we beat Champions League standard teams such as Barcelona, Roma and Porto. It was as tough to win then as the Champions League.

The reputation of the competition in this country has been enhanced by Liverpool’s approach to it. The addition of the Champions League qualifying place is a reason for that. It was a great reform.

Over the years coming fourth has come to mean so much teams were prepared to sacrifice the Europa League and play youngsters or back-up players. It demeaned the Europa League. This season Klopp has had to make changes in the Premier League to focus on Europe.

I wonder whether it is something we should look at in England if we want to revive the FA Cup. I’d consider the FA Cup winner and fourth place in the Premier League having a play-off for the final Champions League place at the end of the season. That would get far more of the bigger teams re-focusing on the FA Cup.

In terms of Liverpool’s chances, I firmly believe if they play their best football they can show the difference between the quality of the Premier League and La Liga is not what many suggest.

You have three world class teams in Spain at the moment – Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico – who could win any league in Europe, but the rest of La Liga don’t make it a competition. Watching the final day of La Liga over the weekend there was no tension at all. You knew Barcelona and Real Madrid would win.

Liverpool demonstrated the gap in quality between the two leagues – beyond that top three - is exaggerated when they outplayed and at times outclassed Villarreal.

Sevilla’s main threats come from Kevin Gameiro and Ever Banega. There will also need to be a plan to deal with Yevhen Konoplyanka. He has pace, dribbling ability and – as we saw for England when playing against Ukraine at Wembley – great ability with his combination play around the penalty area and eye for goal. The key is to keep him on his left foot. For all that, I’m sure the Spanish side will have their concerns about the way Liverpool have gone about their work in Europe.

I’ll tell you what I remember most about the UEFA Cup. How heavy it is. It’s huge. I just hope come the final whistle I see Jordan Henderson and Jurgen Klopp lifting that beautiful trophy.

Source: Telegraph

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