Tonight I witnessed arguably the biggest betrayal in the history of football. How will a goal keeper decide to betray his team mates , coach and club supporters this way? He conceded three goals in the final of the UEFA champions league. Those three goals could have been saved by many goal keepers out there. The first error leading to the first goal scored by Gareth Bale was simply unacceptable while the second although seems he couldn't have saved, could have been stopped by better positioning. For the third goal, how do we explain that? What was he trying to do by stopping a 40 yard shot that way? I believe Loris Karius has just written his name in the bad books of Liverpool's history
I had looked forward to this historic game all day hoping to see a very well contested match in which both teams will work hard to get their goals. The game started with beautiful sparks and as at the 30th minute, Real Madrid had 48% of the ball possession while Liverpool had 52%. This was looking like the final I had anticipated. Then the unexpected happened when Liverpool's talisman, Mohamed Salah was forcefully substituted after being injured by Real Madrid captain, Sergio Ramos. This was the turning point of the game, as Real Madrid realizing that their biggest threat to conceding a goal had been taken off, opened up the game and started attacking Liverpool. Some minutes later, Real Madrid defender, Carvajal was also forcefully taken off after twisting his ankle. However, the first half ended goalless.
The costly blunders by Karius came in the second half of the game. He made the first after gathering the ball and attempting to quickly pass it to his defence, only to throw the ball at Karim Benzema's foot, who watched the ball bobble past him into the net to record the easiest goal of his footballing career. Every football fan knows that the first goal in any final is always very crucial and so this was no different. The saving grace was that Senegal international, Sadio Mane pulled one back for Liverpool four minutes later and the game was level once again. Afterwards, second half substitute, Gareth Bale restored the lead for Real Madrid after scoring a fantastic bicycle kick which can be well compared to the one scored by Christiano Ronaldo against Juventus . Although I believe that goal could have been saved with a much better psitioning by Karius. Then, came the goal which killed the game. Bale scored from about 40 yard out. This was the second big bluder on the part of Karius. I strongly believe he should't have allowed that to go in. So, he practically delivered the trophy into Real Madrid's hands.
Consequently, I believe no one will remember that Karius actually made several good saves in the match. I'm not making excuses for him, but I believe that the 24 year old didn't have a totally worthless night. As expected, many people all over the world have gone to twitter to say awful things about him. Some have even described him as the worst goal keeper ever. I sincerely hope that people will understand that he needs some support and not outright ridicule.
