Klopp blasts Ramos over Champions League final defeat: “It was ruthless”

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has slammed Sergio Ramos over his fouls on Mohamed Salah and Loris Karius in the Champions League final.

Expectations were high for Liverpool and Mohamed Salah in last season’s Champions League final. The Reds had arrived in Kiev on a wave of emphatic victories over Manchester City and Roma in the previous stages of the competition; Salah had broken Premier League goalscoring records and was poised to be a menace towards Madrid’s defenders.

Liverpool’s night would take a turn for the worse, however, when Sergio Ramos brought down Salah with a judo-type throw, severely injuring his shoulder and ending the Egyptian’s night before the end of the first half.

Early in the second half Ramos was involved in another incident when he elbowed Liverpool goalkeeper Karius on the chin, with the German reportedly suffering a concussion from the impact.

Liverpool were in the ascendancy for much of the first half, but after Salah left the pitch Real were able to wrestle control of the game.
Two blunders from a concussed Karius later, Real had sealed victory in the Ukrainian capital.

Klopp, who has spoken candidly about the incident for the first time, described Ramos’ challenge as “brutal”, and doesn’t believe that the Los Blancos captain has been sufficiently contrite about the incidents.

“If you watch it back and you are not with Real Madrid then you think it is ruthless and brutal,” Klopp told reporters (via Goal).

“I saw the ref taking charge of big games at the World Cup and nobody really thinks about that later. But in a situation like that somebody needs to judge it better.

“If VAR is coming then it is a situation where you have to look again. Not to give a red card but to look again and say: ‘What is that?’ It was ruthless.

“I’m not sure it is an experience we will have again – go there and put an elbow to the goalkeeper, put their goalscorer down like a wrestler in midfield and then you win the game. That was the story of the game.

“Ramos said a lot of things afterwards that I didn’t like. As a person I didn’t like the reactions of him. He was like: ‘Whatever, what do they want? It’s normal.’ No, it is not normal.”

Klopp added the incidents represent a pattern of behaviour involving the Spaniard.

“If you put all of the situations of Ramos together then you will see a lot of situations with Ramos. The year before against Juve he was responsible for the red card for [Juan] Cuadrado. Nobody talks about that afterwards.

“It is like we, the world out there, accepts that you use each weapon to win the game. People probably expect that I am the same. I am not.

“We are aggressive but I always use the word ‘legal’ as well. Usually if you try something you will get punished. Someone will see it and ban you for four or five weeks. But in this example, no one.

“This ref should have had the courage to decide that game. In this situation we didn’t get it and, if you write this, people will say I am weak or a bad loser or a whiner. I am not. I accept it. It’s not like I wake up in the morning and think: ‘Ramos!’”

Liverpool play West Ham United in their first game of the 2018-19 season on 12 August.

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