Do we come back next year? – Jurgen Klopp was hopeful after 2018 final defeat

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp admits in the immediate hours of one of the worst nights of his life following their 2018 Champions League final defeat he saw a glimmer of hope.

As players and staff prepared to board their “horrendous” flight home from Kiev after losing 3-1 to Real Madrid one simple thought flashed through the German’s mind.

“Do we come back next year?”

It proved to be prophetic as 12 months later Liverpool beat Tottenham in the Spanish capital to lift their sixth European Cup.

As they chase their seventh in Paris against Real, a repeat of the 1981 final which they won to make it three in five years, Klopp was asked for his recollections of what was his second Champions League final defeat after losing to Bayern Munich as Borussia Dortmund boss in 2013.

“It started as one of the worst nights in my life,” he said ahead of their third final in five years.

“I remember actually only a little glimpse of light while standing in the queue at the airport where we had to go through a security check going to the plane.

“I had this thought there… ‘Do we come back next year?’. But I actually remembered it only a year later.

“I didn’t think about it all throughout the whole (2018-19) Champions League campaign, just when we qualified for the final, I remembered there was something, and I remembered that was there.

I remember actually only a little glimpse of light while standing in the queue at the airport. I had this thought there... ‘Do we come back next year?’- Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp on their 2018 defeat

“It wasn’t a clear thought or idea that from here we will go: ‘That’s perfect, now we are rock bottom and from here we can start again like a phoenix’. It was just this one moment.”

From the ashes of Kiev