Jurgen Klopp lauded the undying support of the Liverpool faithful at the club’s open-top bus parade on Sunday.
The Reds paraded the FA Cup and Carabao Cup trophies in Liverpool city centre, fewer than 24 hours after they had suffered an agonising defeat to Real Madrid in the Champions League final in Paris.
Klopp’s side had also come up short in the Premier League title race, eventually losing out to Man City by a single point.
Despite that disappointment, the Liverpool bus was greeted by smoke bombs and a cacophony of noise as fans turned out in their thousands to celebrate their team’s successes.
Speaking to the club’s official website at the event, manager Klopp said: “Without a shadow of a doubt, no club in the world – this world – that they lost the Champions League final the night before and the people arrive here in the shape they are, the mood they are. Absolutely outstanding.
“This is the best club in the world – I don’t care what other people think!
“I wasn’t sure what we can expect [at the parade after losing the Champions League final]. We spoke about it before, ‘What do we do?’ You have to plan this kind of thing. You can’t just decide to have a parade. But I hoped that we find something like this, it’s absolutely incredible.
“That’s the biggest sign you can give to the world. Yes, we won two competitions, great, but we didn’t win the last two – and these people don’t forget, they know exactly what a shift the boys put in. Absolutely incredible. It’s such a boost for everything that will come. Unbelievable.”
Addressing the deplorable scenes outside the Stade de France on Saturday – where ticket-holding fans were denied access to the stadium and pepper-sprayed by French police – Klopp continued: “I’m proud of the players but I’m proud of these people, to be honest. Unbelievable. Yesterday in the stadium some things happened that nobody understood, our families were in trouble, all these kinds of things.
“Now we come here and see this, when you see the eyes of the people, it’s incredible. That’s the best sign you can get: you don’t have to win, you just need to put all that you have in, really throw everything on the pitch and the people of Liverpool love you. We celebrate life, we celebrate the season, we celebrate our competitions, we celebrate the championship [of 2020].”
On the season overall, Klopp added: “It’s an unbelievable season. What the boys did is unbelievable, what the coaches did is unbelievable. The concentration we kept up, the level we kept, unbelievable. All good. Now I have a holiday!
“I love you all! And I’m not drunk, not a little bit, just emotional!”
