Liverpool assistant coach Pep Lijnders has explained how the team masterminded their famous 4-0 win over Barcelona in 2019.
It was announced on Thursday that Lijnders’ contract with Liverpool had been extended until 2026, following the news of Jurgen Klopp signing a new deal with the Reds . The Dutch coach has been a part of the club’s coaching setup since 2014, albeit briefly leaving to manage NEC Nijmegen in 2018.
However, the 39-year-old was back in the Liverpool dugout for the club’s unforgettable comeback in their Champions League semi-final against Barcelona. Trailing 3-0 from the first leg, both Gini Wijnaldum and Divock Origi scored two apiece as the Reds recorded the most unlikely of comebacks.
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Speaking about the game to The Coaches’ Voice , Lijnders described the match as: “One of my favourite, one of the most decisive, one of the most beautiful, emotional games I’ve ever seen as a coach.” However, Jurgen Klopp ’s right-hand man refused to take much credit for the victory himself.
“It’s much more about the process of training for four years in the same way,” he said. “With the first day being the same idea that ‘we want to chase the opposition all over the pitch’. This idea of football from Jurgen, from the club, from all of us.
“Only then, when the emotions are so high, when you play finals, where 60,000 are screaming and millions of people are watching; the ref is making decisions and you cannot influence (the players), they grab on to the things you train each day.”
On Liverpool’s basic principles against Barcelona, the coach added: “The worst thing in football is doubt. The worst thing if you press a team is doubt. So this connection, this timing, these relationships, this is what we work on each day and this doubt, that’s what we wanted to create against them.”
Though Lijnders also praised current elite development coach Vitor Matos for inspiring the Liverpool squad after their defeat at the Camp Nou - despite the fact that the Portuguese coach was then working for Porto B. With Roberto Firmino ruled out of the first leg through injury, Wijnaldum had been forced to play as a striker against the Spanish giants, which led to a pivotal moment after the final whistle.
“Gini went back into the locker room after and said to Bobby (Firmino), ‘I don’t know how you do this. Each game you do this?’,” Lijnders continued.
“But when we came back in the dressing room and Gini speaks, I got a text message from Vitor Matos, he’s now our assistant coach, and he said: ‘Pep, if there’s one team in the world of football who is able to turn this around, it’s you guys.’
“So I let Jurgen (Klopp) read it and we grab a few players and (that’s when) I learned that the five minutes after the game are more important than the five days leading up to a game.”
Analysing the game in front of a tactics board, Lijnders alluded that it was incomplete without the surrounding Anfield crowd, who played an undoubted role in dragging the club to victory. However, the coach ultimately described the Liverpool side as “legends”, worthy of the ‘mentality monsters’ label that was placed upon them by Jurgen Klopp.
“I think a lot of (Barcelona’s) small victories and their plan, we took away with the mentality of our boys,” he said. “That’s why that season - and still - Jurgen calls them mentality monsters.
“I’m really proud of this team. I’m really happy that I can work with them, day in and day out. They are legends, not just because they won the Champions league that year, but they are legends because they train each day how they train. If you can see each day as a game, each game as a final, over time these games can happen.”
