Jurgen Klopp has revealed that he first learnt of Loris Karius’ Champions League final concussion after receiving a call from Germany legend Franz Beckenbauer.
Karius was found to have suffered the head injury five days after he gifted goals to Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale during Real Madrid’s 3-1 victory over Liverpool.
It was reported in Germany that Karius had suffered a blackout following a clash with Sergio Ramos and 26 of his 30 tests subsequently confirmed he had experienced a concussion, after medical examinations and a scan in America.
Loris Karius was left in tears after making two huge mistakes in the Champions League final
The Liverpool goalkeeper was caught by defender Sergio Ramos and suffered a concussion
Karius was left on the turf and made the first of his mistakes just two minutes after the incident
The 25-year-old bowled the ball into Benzema for the opener in Kiev just two minutes after being caught by Ramos’ arm and allowed Bale’s shot from 30 yards to slip through his hands for the third goal.
Liverpool’s medical team were initially unaware of the problem, but former Bayern Munich defender Beckenbauer called his friend Klopp to inform him that there might be an issue after talking to a leading doctor in Germany.
Their discussion prompted Klopp to look into the prospect that his No 1’s display had been affected and Karius was flown to Boston for tests at Massachusetts General Hospital, where the concussion was confirmed.
Speaking to Liverpoolfc.com after returning to pre-season training, Klopp said: ‘After four days I got a call from Franz Beckenbauer, our Bobby Moore, our biggest football player who is a good friend of mine.
‘He called me and said he came from a doctor, he told me: ‘your goalkeeper had a concussion.’
‘I said, ‘what?’ because in the game, from my position that situation is not very good to see: ‘maybe there was contact or not.’
Jurgen Klopp has revealed that he first learnt of Karius’ concussion from Franz Beckenbauer (r)
Karius rolled the ball straight to Karim Benzema to gift Real Madrid their first goal in Kiev
‘I told him immediately, “OK”. He said the doctor is the most famous doctor in Germany. I said: “OK, give me a few minutes, I have to fix a few things.”
‘I got all the pictures from different perspectives, saw it and thought: “how can we all think that the boy who didn’t show any weakness in that game until then made these big mistakes in a very important game and nobody thinks it’s because of the knock he got?”
‘How can we think that? That was, for me, the explanation and I thought: “OK, come on, we need to check that.”
‘I thought it was too late, you cannot check that. But now I know a concussion isn’t coming and going in a day – if you have one, you see it days later. Five days after the final, Loris had 26 of 30 markers for a concussion still. That’s clear.
‘If you ask Loris, he says he didn’t think about it and didn’t use it for a second as an excuse. We don’t use it as an excuse, we use it as an explanation.
He then allowed Gareth Bale’s long-range effort to slip through his hands late in the game
Karius returned to pre-season training at Melwood earlier this week after his summer break
‘That’s always important, that’s what analysis should be: you explain why things happen.
‘So, from this point of view, from my side everything is fine. We don’t think about that anymore and we start completely new.’
Klopp also absolved the former Stuttgart stopper of any blame for his errors in Kiev, claiming they were ‘100 per cent’ down to the concussion he suffered.
He added: ‘That’s how it is. You make a mistake against Chester and it’s a mistake. If you make a mistake in a Champions League final, it’s a mistake you cannot change anymore, even if you want to – and we all want to.
‘He was influenced by that knock, that is 100 per cent. What the rest of the world is making of it, I don’t care. It’s really not important what the people say. We do not use it as an excuse.
‘Now people could think for us it is the explanation – and for me it is 100 per cent the explanation and that’s all.’