Carabao Cup: Klopp Hails Liverpool Football Academy After Beating Chelsea With “Kids”

The manager of Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp, has hailed the football academy of the club, after leading “kids” to defeat Chelsea’s first eleven in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday, February 25.

Coach Klopp led his team to the Carabao Cup final with the host of his best players out with different degrees of injuries.

The German tactician didn’t have the services of Alisson Becker, Diogo Jota, Mohamed Salah, Darwin Núñez, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and a host of others for the Carabao Cup final.

He used mostly players from the Liverpool football academy and his midfield (Alexis Mac Allister and Endo) is worth just £51 million compared to that of Chelsea (Enzo Fernández and Moisés Caicedo) which is worth a combined £221 million.

After using largely academy players to execute the Carabao Cup final, Klopp who had announced that he would leave Liverpool at the end of the season, said: “I was told there was an English phrase that you don’t win trophies with kids!

“In my more than 20 years, it is easily the most special trophy I have ever won. It is absolutely exceptional.

“I was proud of everybody involved, I was proud of our people for the way they pushed us, I was proud of the staff for creating this kind of atmosphere surrounding where these boys can do what they are best at, I was proud of our academy, my coaches, so many things.

“It has nothing to do with it maybe being my last game at Wembley. It is about how everybody contributed, seeing the faces of the kids after the game.”

He added, “Can you create football stories that definitely nobody will ever forget? It’s so difficult.

“If you find the same story with academy kids coming on against a top, top side and still winning? I don’t know (if you can)”.