Jamie Carragher dismissed Real Madrid's Champions League win in 2022 as nothing more than a fluke on US TV on Tuesday night after the astonishing 5-2 victory over Liverpool. The last-16 tie at Anfield was a repeat of last season's final, a game that Los Blancos also won but in much less dramatic fashion.
Appearing on CBS Sports for the game as a pundit due to BT Sport owning the rights to streaming European matches in the UK, Carragher let his hair down after the game. He had just seen his former side squander a 2-0 lead inside 14 minutes, conceding five unanswered goals.
It comes with Liverpool's impressive European record at stake having reached the final in three of the past five years, only failing to do so in 2020 and 2021. The latter is also the second time in three seasons that an all English final graced the pitch.
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Chelsea were the winners that year after a stunning run to the final that included aggregate wins over Atletico Madrid, Porto and Real Madrid before defeating Manchester City in the final. The Blues only conceded one goal in the knockout stages too, a last minute overhead kick to Mehdri Taremi that was merely a consolation.
It was a staggering achievement for Chelsea who had only sacked Frank Lampard six months earlier. It, alongside their 2012 win, is one of the most surprising wins since the tournament's inception. Carragher thinks that Carlo Ancelotti's run to the trophy last year was just as crazy though.
"I must say, I think Real Madrid are one of the luckiest teams to ever win the Champions League," he remarked at the end of the game to United States audiences. "PSG, they scored two goals with seven minutes to go. Chelsea took them to extra time. Manchester City, they scored two in the last minute and in the final [Thibaut] Courtois was man of the match."
It was quite the outburst criticising a team that has now won the competition five times in the past nine years. Ancelotti himself is now a four-time winner as a manager as well as winning the European Cup as a player.
Chelsea, who were narrow losers in the quarter finals last season, may feel hard done having putplayed the Spanish giants in their own back-yard only to be knocked out but Thierry Henry was quick to rubbish the notion of luck.
"When you see that run you can't say that they were lucky. Football is 90 minutes plus, in that time you can score," he said. Carragher will now have to wait three weeks to see if the Reds can overturn their defecit whilst Chelsea are in action in two weeks against Borussia Dortmund, needing to overcome a 1-0 first leg defeat.
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