The atmosphere was up there among the best European nights witnessed at Anfield, with fans lining the streets before kick-off to hail the arrival of the team coach with flags and flares.
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Liverpool drew 1-1 in Dortmund a week earlier on Klopp’s return to his old stomping ground, but their precious away goal was quickly cancelled out at Anfield.
Marco Reus appeared to have extinguished hopes but Mamadou Sakho and Lovren, both central defenders, proved to be the unlikeliest of heroes on a night when Klopp’s side came of age.
Villarreal striker Cedric Bakambu continued his sublime form with two more goals in a 4-2 win over Sparta Prague in the Czech Republic to complete a 6-3 aggregate victory.
The German coach revealed his thoughts in detail after Liverpool made it to the semi-final of the Europa League.
Tuchel’s decision to take off Reus and Shinji Kagawa, two of Dortmund’s main attacking threats, late in the second half seemed to hand the initiative to Liverpool.
Insane things have happened; just ask Everton.
With the clock ticking well past 90 minutes, and with nearly the entire Liverpool team in the Dortmund penalty area, Dejan Lovren converted James Milner’s cross to guide Liverpool into the next round and send the Kop and manager Jurgen Klopp into wild celebration.
“Against Dortmund you can’t just defend”, said Jürgen Klopp before this game, though he would surely have appreciated it if his charges had defended just a little bit more than this.
Manager Jurgen Klopp’s assertion back in November that “we decide when it is over” rang true as his players gave every part of their being to put them into the Europa League semi-finals.
The Reds, who needed to score three goals in the last 33 minutes, won 4-3 at Anfield and 5-4 on aggregate thanks to Dejan Lovren’s stoppage-time header.
“People go on about the Champions League too much for me”.
“You have to accept it and be an honourable loser and congratulations to Liverpool”. “So now we have something like a milestone, or whatever you would call it, and that’s good, that’s really good”.
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“We also didn’t play that bad in the first half, every one of us believed we could get through in the second half”. “The counter-attack of Dortmund is well known, and they hit us twice”, he said.
