Champions League final - 'Klopp is one of the great ones' - how the papers saw Liverpool's triumph

Oliver Holt in the Mail on Sunday attempted to describe just what another Champions League victory meant for Liverpool, to put it into context, over the past sixty years, as well as the season:

"Liverpool are a club whose recent history is forged in pain and fuelled by emotional energy and, fired by that hope and that joy of which Klopp had spoken, tens of thousands of their supporters had streamed out of the squares and the bars of the Spanish capital where they had congregated all day and made their way to the Wanda Metropolitano where it squats on the outskirts of the city.

"This was not a night to marvel at the football but to revel in the history. This was Liverpool's sixth triumph in the European Cup and Champions League, a record that lifts them above Bayern Munich and Barcelona and behind only AC Milan and Real Madrid in the history of the world's leading club competition. What a tribute it was to a team's ability to bounce back."

Like most of the reports last night, he was full of praise for Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, who had finally won a final, writing: "His image will be paraded on the Kop among the icons of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Rafa Benitez. He is one of the great ones now."

The Telegraph's chief sports writer, Paul Hayward, appeared to bring Brexit into the debate with his very first sentence, but also credited Klopp for the victory. It was his willingness to be decisive that saw Divock Origini brought onto the pitch.

He explained: "Single causes are over-rated, but when Jurgen Klopp replaced Roberto Firmino with Divock Origi 57 minutes into this final he laid the ground for the goal that secured Liverpool’s sixth European title.

"It was decisive, unforgiving management, and cost a star his place on the field for a back-up player with a history of derring-do in big European games."

Steve Bates in the People had a similar angle, suggesting that the disappointment of seeing Manchester City win the Premier League ahead of them, after a season of brilliant performances, could now be laid to rest after their own triumph.

Bates wrote: "The explosion of emotion on Jurgen Klopp's face said it all – it was worth the wait.

"Worth the heartbreak of Kiev a year ago, the agony of seeing Manchester City pip them to the title by a solitary point out of 195.

"For in steamy Madrid this was validation at last. Affirmation that Klopp is no longer a serial loser of big finals."

There was an acknowledgement for all Spurs had brought to this season's competition, too. The excellent Jack Pitt-Brooke, the premier football writer at the Independent, lamented that Spurs would have to carry their final regret with them for some time, as he pointed out that, "This time, when Tottenham Hotspur went to the well of magic and miracles that has fuelled this Champions League campaign, they came back empty.

"They needed it, they needed that extra force to get past Liverpool tonight and lift the European Cup. That power, the energia universal that Mauricio Pochettinoputs his faith in, has lifted them all the way to Madrid, after all. They would not have been here tonight without it. But this time it was missing.

"Spurs needed to play beyond themselves again to win this game. But they played within themselves instead. Of course there is no shame in losing a final, especially to this wonderful Liverpool team, the worthy champions of Europe. But for Tottenham there may be some lingering regret that when they got all this way, to the biggest game in their modern history, they made so little impression on it."

Talking of regret, Daniel Taylor in the Guardian was confident that Liverpool and Klopp will probably not care that their winning performance was so far from their usual standards.

"For Liverpool, such devoted collectors of trophies, it was the sixth time in their prodigious history that the club’s ribbons have adorned that shiny old pot," Taylor wrote.

"There is only Real Madrid, with 13, and Milan, on seven, with a superior record and the team from Anfield have won this competition more times than the other Premier League clubs put together.

"Mohamed Salah knows now how it feels to score one of the decisive goals in European football’s showpiece occasion. So does Divock Origi, whose fingerprints are all over this story, and when the rewards are this high it will not bother Jürgen Klopp or the victorious players that they could probably have decorated the event with football of a more sophisticated level."