Liverpool winning the Champions League and the Premier League at the first time of asking would have been a big ask for Arne Slot. But that won’t make the Reds’ European exit any easier to take in the short term.
Slot has lost games in the league (Nottingham Forest) and the FA Cup (Plymouth Argyle) this season, but none that really mattered. This, though, was the first where there was genuine heartbreak. Exiting on penalties, in particular, was a tough way to go after a grueling 210 minutes.
Nevertheless, the Liverpool boss remained level-headed. He hasn’t had to face the media in these circumstances — beaten, and deservedly so, in a game that mattered — and so it was interesting to see how he reacted. The answer? Nothing changed; Slot spoke carefully and was well-measured.
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"It was the best game of football where I was ever involved in," he first told Amazon Prime. "Incredible performance, especially compared to last week.
"First 20 or 25 minutes, we were all over them, created chance after chance and all of a sudden we were 1-0 down. Probably, it was almost the opposite; maybe we ran out of luck because the margins were so small tonight.
"After 90 minutes it felt we deserved more than being 1-0 down. I was waiting for us to score. I don't think the second half, apart from the last five minutes, they threatened us once or twice.
"We played the perfect game except from scoring goals. It was the same for PSG last week when they played the perfect game and didn't score, and it happened to us today."
Purely from the tone of his words, it would be impossible to know whether his side had won or lost. Slot never gets too high and he wasn't too low here either. His team will benefit from the experience, and next season, with a few new faces, it will improve too.
"Of course, it is a shock," he admitted during his post-game press conference. "Maybe it is not the moment to tell [the players] now — and I didn’t tell them as well — but I can say it here: last season, we weren’t involved in the Champions League, and two seasons ago, Liverpool went out against Madrid after losing 5-2 at home.
"So, if — if — you have to go out, then go out in the way we did against one of the best teams in Europe, making such a fight out of it. I hope and think every fan around the world was hoping this game would just keep on going, it wouldn’t stop, because it was incredible.
"They, in the end, won. For us, it is so, so, so unlucky if you are number one in the league table that you then face Paris Saint-Germain, which is one of the best teams in Europe, but that’s the format we are in."
Liverpool will be better for the experience of losing; Slot, though, will always remain consistent. "We have to accept it and we will come back stronger next season," he promised.
This was a new experience for the Reds boss, but every other setback he has faced has seen lessons quickly learned. This one, as he says, will be no different.
