Liverpool won the Carabao Cup final after beating Chelsea 11-10 in an extraordinary penalty shootout at Wembley.
Liverpool have won the League Cup for the ninth time in their history. The match will probably be remembered for a Chelsea gamble that backfired spectacularly, but there was so much more to it than that.
Kai Havertz and Luis Diaz were quite brilliant – Havertz with his ghostly movement and subtle touches, Diaz with his intricate skill and dynamism.
Edouard Mendy made one of the saves of the season, Caoimhin Kelleher added an unlikely chapter to his Carabao Cup fairytale. We also had offside goals galore, missed chances, heroic defending and a bit of controversy. Chelsea then had three goals of their own disallowed for offside – two by Havertz and one for an extremely tight decision against Romelu Lukaku.
In normal circumstances this would simply have been hailed as a brilliant final, a classic in fact, open and full of attacking intent from two impressive teams and it was, actually, staggering that no goals were scored. That was due to Mendy, Kelleher, four efforts being ruled out for offside and, unfortunately, also a couple of glaring misses from Chelsea’s Mason Mount.
Thomas Tuchel admitted that he did not know whether Chelsea would feel comfortable celebrating, given the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the nationality and associations of the club’s oligarch owner Roman Abramovich, should they win the Carabao Cup but Liverpool dramatically spared them that dilemma.
Caoimhin Kelleher, who was a striker in his youth, assuredly scored what turned out to be the winning effort before Arrizabalaga’s miss and led those celebrations as red smoke from a barrage of flares from the Liverpool fans billowed across Wembley.
Despite all the chances, the match drifted towards penalties. Thomas Tuchel brought Kepa on to be the hero, just as he was in the Super Cup win over Villarreal earlier in the season. Instead, in a twist that nobody could have foreseen, he was the villain.
James Milner and Jordan Henderson showed their class after winning by consoling the Chelsea players on collection of their runners-up medals. With this thought potentially in the back of their minds, both Henderson and Milner took the time to shake the hands of the Chelsea players as they made their way back onto the pitch after collecting their medals.
They knew all too well how it feels to suffer defeat at Wembley, having suffered a shootout loss to Manchester City in the 2016 Carabao Cup final.
Even for Jurgen Klopp, the manager of what must now be considered the best Liverpool side since at least the 1980s, this was the breaking of new ground at Wembley. How good must it feel to know that all of this Wembley colour and cheer could merely be the glorious prelude to the most sensational conclusion of any season of any era at Anfield?
My Goat Sports 