“You can feel people looking at you like ‘what have you done?'”
Loris Karius made two terrible errors in the Champions League final on Saturday night. The Liverpool goalkeeper was badly at fault for two of Real Madrid’s three goals in the 3-1 defeat.
In the biggest game of his life, Karius threw the ball straight into Karim Benzema’s outstretched leg.
He could do little about Gareth Bale’s amazing overhead kick.
But, in the final minutes, he gifted Bale his second goal with another howler, after he let the forward’s shot slip through his hands.
It’s difficult not to feel some sympathy for the ‘keeper, but his errors just confirmed what many had already known for quite some time – he’s not good enough to be a goalkeeper for Liverpool.
Ultimately, he shouldn’t have ever reached a Champions League final, and Liverpool shouldn’t have reached the point where he was their starting goalkeeper for such a match. Hopefully, he can recover and find his level at another club.
Following full-time, many noticed that Karius’ teammates didn’t come straight over to console him. It was left to the Madrid players instead to try and comfort the distraught goalkeeper.
Telling https://t.co/GopQNEdAX9
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) May 27, 2018
Rio Ferdinand, on punditry duty for BT Sport, said that the dressing room following the match will have been an unforgiving place. From his experience playing for Manchester United, he reckoned that Karius’ teammates will have had little sympathy for him immediately after the game, despite what they said in public.
“I’ve been in changing rooms where people have made mistakes, and you can feel people looking at you like ‘what have you done?'” Ferdinand said
“Even myself, I’ve done it. I’ve looked at people and thought, ‘you’ve contributed there to me losing and missing out on a medal.’ It does happen, but you can’t say it out here.”
Karius should never have been on the pitch to make the mistakes https://t.co/keXoB5WyRW
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) May 27, 2018
Rio also said that he hopes Karius can overcome this awful setback and gets support over the next few months. It’ll be a long summer for the German ‘keeper.
“At this level, you don’t expect to see mistakes that are made like that and I just hope this kid can actually recover from this,” Ferdinand said.
“He’s going to need a lot of people, a lot of support around him from the club, from his close friends and family and these next couple of months are really important for him that he doesn’t go under because that’s the concern.”
