Liverpool beat Chelsea to Super Cup in shoutout

Liverpool beat Chelsea to Super Cup in shoutout

  • By michael@cvcteam.com
  • |

Liverpool beat Chelsea in a dramatic penalty shootout to win the UEFA Super Cup in Istanbul on Wednesday night after the match finished in a 2-2 draw after extra time.

Nine players had hit their spot kicks before Liverpool backup keeper Adrian kept out Tammy Abraham’s effort to hand Jurgen Klopp’s team the win in the annual cup match between the winners of the Champions League and Europa League.

Following the match, Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson told BT Sport: “I’m delighted for Adrian. He’s just come to the club and he’s the hero tonight.

“We want to win as many trophies as we can so we’ll enjoy it tonight but then focus on recovering for a big game on Saturday.”

– Chelsea Ratings: Kante gets 8/10, Pulisic 7/10 in cup loss
– Liverpool Ratings: Mane decisive as Reds lift Super Cup

Adrian, who only joined the club from West Ham at the end of the summer window, added: “Welcome to Liverpool. It was a crazy week. I am happy for the team. I am happy to get a trophy. I am really happy for the fans. It was a long game but in the end it was a great finish for us. To be fair I tried to stop when I saw him.

“The striker is so intelligent. I touched him with the penalty but he was looking for that. I told the referee I tried to stop but it doesn’t matter. We got the title and have to enjoy tonight.”

Frank Lampard handed Christian Pulisic his first competitive start with Chelsea, while Klopp picked Adrian in goal after Allison picked up a calf injury in Liverpool’s Premier League opener against Norwich City on Friday.

Chelsea had the better of an entertaining opening half hour and finally scored when Pulisic split the Liverpool defence with a through ball and Olivier Giroud calmly dispatched it past Adrian to make it 1-0.

American Pulisic then beat Adrian with a fine shot after a swift run down the flank but the effort was ruled out for offside and Chelsea took a 1-0 lead into half-time.

Liverpool got back on level terms just after the restart when Sadio Mane bundled home into an open net after Kepa Arrizabalaga had initially kept out his close-range strike from a set piece.

A pair of stellar Kepa saves in the 75th minute kept the score even as the Spaniard first denied Virgil van Dijk and then recovered to stop Fabinho’s effort from the rebound and the match headed to extra time.

The teams traded goal early in the extra 30 minutes with Mane clinically finishing from a Roberto Firmino cut-back pass to put Liverpool ahead and Chelsea’s Jorginho sending Adrian the wrong way from the penalty spot to make it 2-2.

Chelsea went close twice in the second stanza of extra time, with Adrian doing well to keep out a thunderous strike from Mason Mount and Pedro flashing just wide of the post seconds later.

With both teams perfect from the spot in the shootout, Abraham stepped up for his penalty but shot tamely down the middle allowing Adrian to make the save and hand the Champions League winners a 5-4 shootout victory.

“It was tough, it’s humid here, with it going to extra-time as well,” Henderson said. “You could see a lot of the lads were struggling. We were trying to keep the ball and get a breather but it was a bit sloppy.

“Chelsea are a good side and it’s not a great way to lose. We know that after the Community Shield, but thankfully we won this one.

“We didn’t play particularly well but we kept grinding, kept going. It’s another trophy for us and it’s important to keep winning.”

Lampard rued his side’s inability to get a result, but vowed they would keep kicking on despite losing the first two matches of his start as Chelsea boss.

He said: “I’m the worst loser in the world and I hate it. The way they played, the spirit, the desire, the quality.

“I know we lost and that’s it but [we take] confidence for the season. We have got real quality in there. Sometimes football is little moments of luck.”

Both teams return to Premier League action this weekend, with Liverpool away to Southampton on Saturday and Chelsea hosting Leicester City on Sunday.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

×
×