24th February, 2024
In 2022, Liverpool pushed on four fronts as they chased a historic quadruple of the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup.
They could only win the two domestic trophies while narrowly losing the league title and the Champions League.
Their domestic triumphs came at the expense of Chelsea courtesy of two penalty shootout wins at the Wembley Stadium.
In the Carabao Cup final, the shootout was a scoring-spree, as ten outfield players from the two teams found the back of the net.
The goalkeepers decided the teams’ fate in a keenly contested tie. Liverpool’s Caoimhín Kelleher would score his penalty, while Kepa Arizabalaga shot wide.
Without a doubt, The Blues are out for revenge. Tune in SuperSport Football (ch 61) at 5pm on Sunday to catch the anticipated clash of titans as the two giants seek to lift the first domestic major trophy of the season.
Chelsea wants to end their run of defeats in the Carabao Cup final. Since their last triumph over Tottenham Hotspur in 2015, the Blues have lost two Carabao Cup finals against Manchester City in 2019 and Liverpool in 2022. Both losses came through penalty shootouts. Mauricio Pochettino, the man who was at the dugout for Spurs when Chelsea last won the League Cup, is now at the helm of affairs at Stamford Bridge.
The Argentine reiterated his desire to win his first trophy in England, after his team defeated Middlesbrough 6-1 in the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final to overturn the 2-1 deficit from the first leg. Pochettino’s first foray in England as Tottenham’s manager yielded no trophy, and he is keen to make up for it against Liverpool, the team that denied him Champions League glory with Tottenham in 2019.
On the other hand, Liverpool are keen to give their iconic manager, Jurgen Klopp a memorable farewell season, starting with winning a record extending 10th Carabao Cup trophy. The German notably lost his first Carabao Cup final with Liverpool against Manchester City in 2016 on penalty shootout. He would not want a repeat.
Klopp told fans in his announcement video that he was running out of energy as the team’s manager, but fans are hoping he will be strong enough to do his famous fist bumps if the team succeeds in stopping Chelsea’s revenge mission at the Wembley Stadium. The Kops are dreaming about a quadruple, Sunday may set the ball rolling for the push.
Liverpool have won the Carabao Cup on nine occasions, while Chelsea are five time winners. Out of the eleven starting players for the Blues in the final two years ago, nine are currently plying their trade elsewhere, meaning a relatively new team will be facing the Reds on Sunday. The quartet of Jordan Henderson, Fabinho, Naby Keita and Sadio Mane have also left the Reds.