Clumsy Karius

Building up to the match, one could sense a massive sense of excitement. This may have been for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it was one of the biggest sporting days in any football fans calendar and secondly there was an English team in the final. An English team who were seemingly underdogs, but had the most potent attack in Europe for the 17/18 season. The underdogs were playing possibly one of the best clubs in club football at the moment and this set up Liverpool versus Real Madrid in fantastic fashion.

The perfect storm was brewing, but this was ultimately bungled by two errors by Karius (Liverpool’s goalkeeper). The first error was where Karius went to roll the ball to one of his team mates and Benzema simply stuck his leg out and made contact with the ball. This meant that Karius and all the other Liverpool players and fans watched the ball roll agonisingly into the goal. The second goal seemed to result from a misjudged shot on target. This would usually be a regulation save for Karius, however, in this case he spilt the ball and yet again, it rolled agonisingly into the goal. This meant that the final score was 3-1 to Real Madrid and many Liverpool fans were left feeling disappointed and let down.

My argument for the first goal that Karius conceded is that perhaps in a situation like this, he “had his blinkers on”. What I mean by this is that he was so focussed on the outcome of getting the ball in the best position to score that he neglected his other senses and options. He saw one option and that was the one that he opted for. In the case of the second goal, there may have been other external variables at play. These may have included the speed on the ball, spin on the ball, movement in the air and even moisture on the ball or his gloves. Now any one, or none of these factors may have been at play, but at the same time I can’t help but feel that this was a mistake that could have been made by any goalkeeper.

Moving onto other opinion that I have heard. I have heard from a Liverpool fans perspective that had those two goals not been conceded that the score would have remained 1-1. This may have resulted in extra time and penalties, but this is still not a guaranteed Liverpool victory. Another opinion from a neutral/Real Madrid perspective is that Real Madrid seemed like they were just waiting to po

unce and that they had world class players in all positions, even on the bench. This was epitomised by Gareth Bale’s introduction to the game where he scored 2 goals, one of which was one of the best goals I have ever seen. Bale scoring that goal is in stark contrast to the errors made by Karius and therefore perhaps sums up the nature of this match?