As far as 0-0s go in the world of football, you probably won’t watch a better one this season than the goalless draw between Liverpool and Chelsea in the recent League Cup Final at Wembley. Aside from the glaringly obvious absence of goals that actually stood, it was far from a match that failed to live up to expectation — with drama galore over the course of the 120 minutes and even more jaw-dropping moments in the subsequent penalty shootout.
There were big opportunities missed from both sides, with Mason Mount, Christian Pulisic and Romelu Lukaku all passing on big goalscoring opportunities for Chelsea, while even the usually clinical Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané couldn’t find the back of the net for Liverpool when presented with the chance to find a crucial breakthrough — credit must also be given to Edouard Mendy and Caoimhin Kelleher for stopping the ball from rippling the back of their nets on numerous occasions.
Of course, whilst the goalkeepers were the stars of the show — until Kepa Arrizabalaga replaced Mendy ahead of the shootout at least — they weren’t looking truly unbeatable. It was Joël Matip who sparked jubilation in the Liverpool end of Wembley with around 25 minutes to spare, heading the ball home from close range and suspending the football betting on skybet.com, only for VAR to rule to goal out for Virgil van Dijk interfering with play from an offside position.
Around 10 minutes later, it was Kelleher who was beaten. This time Kai Havertz, the man for big moments, latched onto a good cross from his German compatriot Timo Werner and headed past the young Irishman. Cue the offside flag, the short-lived celebrations in the Chelsea end and the inevitable scratching off of yet another disallowed goal. That’s enough drama for any match, but it’s merely only the beginning as there was more theatrics yet to unfold in the addition 30 minutes.
The London outfit were probably feeling hard done by when Lukaku’s goal was chalked off after he found the back of the net again eight minutes into added time. The Belgian striker looked to be in with van Dijk when he was played through on goal by Trevoh Chalobah, keeping his composure to fire past Kelleher — only for VAR rule to that he was offsider by nothing more than a sleeve.
Thomas Tuchel probably couldn’t believe his side’s ill fortune when Havertz had the ball in the back of the net for a third time — with the German youngster firing low past the Irish keeper.
There couldn’t really be any complaints this time round, with the Champions League winner well beyond Liverpool’s last man, and so the match headed to penalties — but not before Kepa emerged from the tunnel with his gloves to replace Mendy between the sticks.
We could talk all day about Kepa’s antics — trying to put the Liverpool penalty takers off by jumping around the goal-line like he was prime Jerzy Dudek, only to make himself look silly by not saving a single one of the Reds’ 11 attempts. But not only did the so-called ‘penalty specialist’ fail to deliver a crucial stop, he then riffled the decisive penalty miles over the crossbar to gift Liverpool the cup.
It was the second successive domestic cup final that Tuchel has lost as Chelsea boss, having suffered a 1-0 defeat to Leicester City in the FA Cup Final last May, and if the Blues are to get to the showpiece of that competition again this year, you can bet that he won’t be making any rash decisions to change he goalkeeper in the last minute again!
