LONDON: It has taken two months, but Jurgen Klopp finally ended his silence over the Sergio Ramos challenge that ended Mohamed Salah’s Champions League final.
In one of the most entertaining showdowns in recent years, which saw Real Madrid beat Liverpool 3-1 in Kiev, the biggest of several talking points was Ramos’ foul, which resulted in an injured shoulder, tears and an early bath for the Egyptian ace.
Salah went into the clash as the danger man Real had to stop, on the back of a brilliant first season with the Reds that saw him score 44 goals in
all competitions, and 32 goals in the Premier League — a record in a 38-game season.
But after less than 30 minutes the Egyptian talisman went down under a challenge from Ramos and suffered shoulder ligament damage that forced him off the pitch.
Having kept quiet on the issue, Klopp, however, has finally broken his silence and hit out at Ramos for ruining Liverpool’s chances of a sixth European Cup, saying the Spanish defender brought down the forward like a wrestler.
“We are opening that bottle again?” Klopp asked on the Reds’ pre-season tour of the US.
“It is action-reaction-action-reaction and I don’t like that, but — if you watch it back and you are not with Real Madrid — then you think it is ruthless and brutal. I saw the ref taking charge of big games at the World Cup and nobody really thinks about that later. But in a situation like that somebody needs to judge it better,” he said.
“If VAR is coming then it is a situation where you have to look again. Not to give a red card but to look again and say: ‘What is that?’ It was ruthless.”
The match was a controversial one with Ramos’ challenge on Salah not the only talking point from a clash won by Gareth Bale’s brilliant overhead kick. Liverpool goalkeeper Loris Karius, who suffered a concussion during the match, made couple of blunders to concede two goals.
Ramos elbowed the German keeper early in the second half and Karius was seen holding the side of his head after the collision, which came before he made the mistakes that led to the goals.
“I’m not sure it is an experience we will have again — go there and put an elbow to the goalkeeper, put their goalscorer down like a wrestler in midfield and then you win the game. That was the story of the game,” Klopp said.
“Ramos said a lot of things afterwards that I didn’t like. As a person I didn’t like the reactions of him. He was like: ‘Whatever, what do they want? It’s normal.’
“No, it is not normal. If you put all of the situations of Ramos together then you will see a lot of situations with Ramos ... It is like we, the world out there, accepts that you use each weapon to win the game. People probably expect that I am the same. I am not.”