Jurgen Klopp: “We Made Our Life Difficult”

The first leg of Champions League round of 16 matchups between Liverpool and Bayern Munich ended without goals. The fans at Anfield had a lot to see, but unfortunately for them, there weren’t any scores.

Many football enthusiasts, were anxiously waiting for this game to take place. The big majority predicted a high-scoring affair, but eventually, nothing happened.

Liverpool had the initiative throughout most of the match, but the Reds had problems up front, when they needed to close the job.

Jurgen Klopp thinks that it is because of a poor last pass, which was sent either too late or too early. The German coach saw his players as their own biggest enemies in some situations.

“We made our life a bit difficult with the last pass.” Klopp who had many clashes with Bayern in his past said.”It was not a day when it clicked in the very first minute.”

Still, Liverpool’s coach doesn’t think that this is a bad result for his boys. He spoke about the fact that a goalless draw at home isn’t that terrible. For him, 0-0 is quite a solid starting point before the second leg in Munich.

“The positive thing is that the result is the best draw you can get….I’m not over the moon, but I’m completely OK.”

Any draw in which Liverpool scores will lead them in the quarterfinals. And knowing the fantastic counter-attack of this team, it might be even easier for them to play their own game at Allianz Arena than at Anfield.

Meanwhile, Bayern’s coach Niko Kovac was looking quite confident after tonight’s encounter. The Croat was pretty straightforward in his interview at the press conference, saying that Bayern got what they wanted and that they need to finish the job in Munich.

“We achieved our goal, we got the draw. Now we need to make sure we finish the job in Munich.”

The Reds started the match aggressively, imposing a high-tempo on the field, and trying to find a gap in Bayern’s defense. But the guests were the ones who threatened first. At first, Joel Matip almost scored an own goal, and the second time was right after that, when Koman sent a rocket which finished a few inches near Alisson’s right post.

Mohamed Salah also failed to use a great opportunity after a header from some 7 yards. The biggest miss of the whole night was made by Sadio Mane, who was left alone in front of Neuer and managed to send the ball wide instead to routinely bring the lead to his team.

The Senegalese had one more try, in the 85th minute. This time his header was cleared by Neuer who reacted perfectly, preventing what seemed to be an inevitable score.

The second leg is scheduled for the 13th of March, at Allianz Arena.

In the second game of the night, Lyon and Barcelona also played 0-0. The guests from Barcelona were much better, but they couldn’t score. One part of that was because of their bad finishing, and the lack of composure and the other factor was Lyon’s goalkeeper Anthony Lopez, who posted maybe his best Euro performance so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRvB6G5k1g

“Lyon played well but their keeper was very good,” said Barca’s defender Clement Lenglet.

The Spanish titan had 25 goal attempts, and in the end, the home team players were saving their skin, denying an unstoppable force which was coming from the opposite side of the court.

Unlike with the other meeting of this night, here we have a distinctive favorite, and the overall impression is that Blaugrana won’t have much trouble in three weeks.

This was the second time in the Champions League history, to see two goalless draws on the same night of the round of 16 stage.

Tomorrow we have two games on the menu. Juventus is facing Atletico in Madrid, while Manchester City plays against Schalke in Gelsenkirchen.