Winning the Carabao Cup on Sunday for Liverpool was never going to be a game changer financially for the club.
The penalty shootout success over Chelsea after 120 pulsating minutes at Wembley delivered a record-breaking ninth League Cup triumph for the Reds and gave them their first piece of silverware of the season, with a quadruple still a possibility.
The euphoria of being able to celebrate silverware in front of their fans was heightened due to the fact that Liverpool were denied the chance to do the same in front of the Anfield faithful when they won the Premier League in 2020 due to the ban of fans in stadiums because of the pandemic.
The Carabao Cup has had its fair share of criticism in recent years, with clubs accused of not taking the competition seriously and even some managers questioning its place in the English football calendar, with Pep Guardiola one of those to hold the view that the competition should be scrapped as it was causing too much congestion.
Anyone who was at Wembley on Sunday and drank in the joy and euphoria when Kepa Arrizabalaga ballooned his spot kick over the bar to crown Liverpool Carabao Cup champions would be unlikely to have shared that view. Prize money is for the club, trophies are for the fans.
READ MORE: Jurgen Klopp explains special guest Alisson invited to lift trophy with Liverpool squad
READ MORE: Eight things spotted during Liverpool trophy celebrations as John Henry and Linda Pizzuti join in
There is no real financial value to the Carabao Cup. In terms of importance when it comes to the business side of the football club it simply doesn't stack up against the lucrative nature of success in the Premier League and, even more so, the Champions League. Protecting the club's best players to enable them to operate at the highest level that they can in the biggest and most lucrative games will always be a priority.
The winners of the Carabao Cup pick up a cheque for £100,000. To put that into some context, a draw in the Champions League group stages is worth eight times that.
There is a TV deal in place and, according to the Daily Mail, the value for Premier League games in the competition stands at around £9m. Last year Premier League clubs agreed to a £25m rebate of the overall £80m deal after the pandemic saw them push to remove two-legged semi finals.
But the small prize money available masks how valuable the competition can be, and has been, for Liverpool.
Caoimhin Kelleher was the hero for the Reds on Sunday.
The 23-year-old Irishman scored what proved to be the winning penalty after Kepa, who was brought on by Chelsea boss specifically for the penalty shootout, blazed over.
He delivered a fine performance, as he has done throughout the Carabao Cup. Reds boss Jurgen Klopp had clarified well ahead of the final that it would be Kelleher who would get the nod and not number one Alisson Becker, a decision in recognition of his achievements in the competition this season.
"I don't know when I saw him the first time but he was boy and now he is a man today," said Klopp after the game.
"His development is top class. Alisson Becker is the best keeper in the world for me. But if I am 100 per cent honest, Kelleher is the best number two in the world for how we play.
"At the training centre we have a wall that all goalkeepers are on who won something and Caoimhin can go on it - that's how it should be - absolutely great."
Having competition for goalkeepers is always preferable. Chelsea paid £22m for their number one, Edouard Mendy, with the man who replaced him just for penalties, Kepa, having cost them £72m back in 2018 to make him the most expensive goalkeeper of all time.
Liverpool have long been about keeping the money on the field and not in the stands.
CUP FINAL MAP: Show your support and tell us where you watched the win over Chelsea
Alisson's £67m fee has been justified since he arrived at Anfield in 2018. Every penny of it. He has been one of the most transformational signings that Liverpool have made in recent times, addressing a need that the Reds had had for some time.
Understudies have come and gone, with Simon Mignolet, Adrian and Loris Karius never truly able to nail down the role.
In Kelleher the Reds have a product they produced themselves who has already shown that is a more than capable deputy to Alisson. Featuring all the way through to lifting a domestic trophy is proof of his talent, and Klopp will know that, while Alisson will always be the man to dislodge, there are very few concerns that exist around Kelleher and his ability to step up to the mark in this Liverpool side.
Kelleher has only made four Premier League appearances for the Reds, but his market value will already have jumped from it's £2.5m that it was placed at by Transfermarkt in December by virtue of his role in the success.
Time in the first team in competitions such as the Carabao Cup, and success, drives up the values of players in the market but more importantly for Liverpool gives their players a grounding at first team level that allows them to be valuable contributors and means that the club don't have to spend money in the market to fill needs that they can address with players that arrive from their own ranks.
Trent Alexander-Arnold began his Liverpool pathway with games in the League Cup, the same as Curtis Jones has done. Then there are the likes of Max Woltman, Harvey Blair, Tyler Morton, Connor Bradley and Elijah Dixon-Bonner who have made that similar step this season. And while Harvey Elliott isn't technically a player who has emerged through the ranks at Anfield, his Liverpool grounding and vital steps into the first team arrived first in the League Cup.
It has also also long served as a value sharpener for the likes of Divock Origi, Kostas Tsimikas and Takumi Minamino, meaning that the further the Reds go in the competition the better it is for the the options available to Klopp.
There will be no major money drop into the Reds bank account today because of their success on Sunday, but the value of success in the competition can't always be gaged by the size of the number on the winners' cheque.
