NAPLES, BALIPOST.com – Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp said his side had not ‘gone nuts’ after winning the Champions League and were ready for their title defence starting with a Group E opener in Napoli on Tuesday.
“To win is nice, but it doesn’t change anything,” Klopp told reporters in Naples.
“It’s so easy to carry on as normal.
“If you go nuts and start taking drugs and buying different cars or whatever and leave you missus at home, than it gets hard.
“We want to create more stories to remember in the future and not just this one.
“We don’t feel the burden, it’s long ago… three, four months.”
Liverpool have reached the last two Champions League finals, beating Tottenham in the Spanish capital in June after losing to Real Madrid 12 months earlier.
And they are riding high in the Premier League with five wins in as many games.
The 52-year-old German said they were more interested in learning from last year’s errors including losing all their away games starting with a 1-0 defeat in Napoli to a late Lorenzo Insigne winner.
“We lost all our away games, we can change that at least this year,” he said.
Napoli are expected to pose the sternest test to Liverpool in a group which also includes unfancied Salzburg and Genk.
“It’s a tough game tomorrow,” said Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson.
“When we came here last year we didn’t perform very well at all, the manager will tell you that. We used that game to improve a lot.
“Hopefully tomorrow night will be a different story.
“We’re still improving, everything is possible again.”
– ‘Painful to lose’ –
Ancelotti said his side have learned from their mistakes last season, when they failed to advance from a tough group that also included Ligue 1 champions Paris Saint-Germain.
The southern Italians are fifth in Serie A after three games, including a defeat to champions Juventus.
Klopp believes there are similarities between Liverpool and Napoli this season.
“A really good team, got a few new players but have the majority of the team still together so we are similar,” the German said.
Napoli’s new arrivals include Spanish striker Fernando Llorente from Tottenham and Mexican midfielder Hirving Lozano from PSV Eindhoven.
Llorente, 34, he was eager to gain ‘revenge’ after his defeat in the Champions League final.
“It was very painful to lose the final, there is a desire for revenge, yes, but it is especially the opportunity to show that we can be at the level of a team as strong as Liverpool,” said Llorente.
Three-time Champions League winning coach Ancelotti admitted that Liverpool was linked to some of his “biggest disappointments”, like the 1984 European Cup final lost as a player with Roma or the famous 2005 final in Istanbul as coach of AC Milan. (AFP)
