After Basel collapse, Klopp must rebuild Liverpool

The most independent of British cities, Liverpool, loves the world beyond our shores. Continental football stirs that sense of adventure and sends the fans flooding abroad. But Jurgen Klopp’s men have seen the last of Europe for a while.

This was a double defeat for Liverpool. It left them short in a Europa League final and removed their last chance of qualifying for next season’s Champions League. Home fires will preoccupy them now, and Klopp’s next big test looms.

His task is to reshape this squad in the summer transfer bazaar, where his judgment will be tested. Past errors must be corrected and overall standards raised in a team that finished eighth in the Premier League — 21 points behind Leicester.

But two finals in his first seven months in charge are a decent return, even if the form of the Villarreal game and the triumph over Borussia Dortmund fell away under a remarkable second-half assault by Sevilla.

The two 45-minute periods in this game were completely incompatible, to Liverpool’s cost. After the break, they became fodder for Sevilla’s bid to complete a hat-trick of Europa League titles. With Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid contesting the Champions League final, can anyone seriously dispute that Spanish football is king of the hill?

For once the Scouse passion came to nought. They came through every Swiss city, down every Swiss train line, to be at Liverpool’s 12th major European final: A shot at glory for a side who finished in mid-division but still found a John Lennon of a manager to stir the imagination.

Heroics and comebacks dominate Liverpool’s history in Europe but this time the odds were insurmountable after Sevilla struck three times in 24 minutes. The third of them, by Coke, was disputed, but the overall effect of a lightning triple blow was unambiguous. Liverpool were almost back in Istanbul territory and Klopp was beside himself with anger.

Liverpool are not tourists in Europe. They like to win — and they usually do, with eight victories in 11 major finals before Daniel Sturridge landed the first blow in this one, with a beautiful curling finish from the outside of his boot. The quality of that goal deserved better than the Spanish onslaught it provoked. Klopp — the steely, humorous, modern German coach in the winter jogging gear — was trying to join Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Gerard Houllier and Rafael Benitez on Liverpool’s list of European-trophy winning managers — and he could hardly hope for greater support from the supporters, though he demanded it all the same after Coke’s first goal (Sevilla’s second), stomping along the touchline, tapping his watch and waving his arms to raise more noise.

So excited was Klopp by Liverpool’s good work towards the end of the first half that he ran half the length of the pitch and into the tunnel, ahead of his players. Maybe it was just for a comfort break. Or perhaps he could barely wait to tell his team that Sevilla were a team on the slide and no match for an English club who had already knocked out Manchester United, Dortmund and Villarreal.

Or just possibly it was to warn them against complacency. In which case the message failed to get through, certainly to Alberto Moreno. Seventeen seconds into the second half, Moreno sold himself to Mariano Ferreira, who cut inside and crossed for Kevin Gameiro to tap the ball home.

Three Uefa Cups to sprinkle around those five European Cups has been a sizeable comfort for Liverpool, who have not won the domestic title for 26 years. It has created a parallel realm of pleasure, to which the supporters flock in their tens of thousands, hammering out songs and bearing emotive banners. Liverpool is a city of sign-writers, up all hours to stitch and paint their messages.

A few examples from this game: “Liverpool FC — Following the Footsteps of our Fathers”. And “LFC — It’s About the Glory”. And “Game Well and Truly Over — Istanbul 2005”. Others proclaim “A Certain Style of Life” and “Above us Only Sky” and “Spion Kop — True Socialism”.

To cope with the talent drain of the last five years — Luis Suarez, Raheem Sterling — Liverpool needed a manager with sufficient charisma to shape the future in his own image. A manager with a big idea. And while gegenpressing is hardly revolutionary, it assumes a powerful force when combined with Klopp’s team-building skills, his talent for harmony.

“Is it our only chance in life and if we don’t take it then everything will be rubbish afterwards?” he asked before this game. “It doesn’t work like this.”

This was his attempt to stop everyone seeing this final as Liverpool’s past, present and future rolled into one. He was right, of course. But people do not pay hundreds of pounds to watch common sense. They come to see a conquest.

Here in Basel you could argue Liverpool were at the end of a season of over-achievement in Europe, against opponents who own this competition. Moreno’s defensive aberrations were a clue to the real truth. Liverpool’s talent base is still too low to match their ambitions. They need more players of trophy-winning calibre and fewer who represent the recruitment errors of the past.

Klopp will know that, and will now look for solutions.

* The writer is the chief sports writer of The Daily Telegraph.