Hugo Lloris finally opens up on 2019 Champions League final defeat
Hugo Lloris feels a sense of injustice at the penalty that was awarded against Tottenham Hotspur in the 2019 Champions League final, claiming that the decision cost him and his Spurs teammates a place in the club’s history books.
The biggest ‘what if’ moment in Tottenham’s history
More than five years on from that final in Madrid, it is fair to say that some Spurs fans are still not over the decision to award Liverpool a penalty within the first minute of the game.
Sadio Mane’s cross came off Mousa Sissoko’s chest to hit his hand, and the French midfielder’s arm was only outstretched since he was pointing to his teammate to stick with his runner.
Even though the Spurs midfielder was only a few meters away from Mane, the referee decided to point to the spot, with Mohamed Salah stepping up to give the Reds the lead.
That gave Jurgen Klopp’s men the platform to defend with men behind the ball and frustrate Tottenham, with the Merseyside club eventually getting a second late on through a counterattack to seal the win.
Hugo Lloris makes penalty confession
Lloris admitted that the penalty decision was extremely hard for him and his teammates to digest that evening.
The former Tottenham captain pointed out that the rules subsequently changed, meaning that it was the last time that such an offence would constitute a spot-kick.
Lloris said about the decision (via The Guardian): “The penalty awarded by referee Damir Skomina 24 seconds into the match – when the ball struck Moussa Sissoko’s body and rebounded onto his hand – killed the final and wiped us out.
“From 2 June 2019, a change in the rules meant that a penalty would no longer follow if the ball struck a player’s hand after touching another part of their body. The final took place on 1 June 2019, and something which wouldn’t have been an offence the following day sealed the fate of the final before it had really begun.”
CL final a big missed opportunity
The former Spurs goalkeeper confessed that the players did not realise at the time that they might never get a chance to win the Champions League again.
He remarked the penalty decision denied him and his teammates a chance to write their name into Tottenham’s folklore and put an end to the talks about the club’s lack of silverware.
Lloris added: “I played three finals with Tottenham – two League Cups (2015 and 2021) and one Champions League – in which we didn’t score a single goal. It was so disappointing to have experienced all those emotions and for the adventure to come to an end in such a way.
“I don’t know if everyone in the club and the team realised how difficult it is to reach a final, and how hard it is to come back from that. I’m not sure we understood that this was perhaps the only chance in our career to win the Champions League; that the club we played for was not one that was programmed to win it; that we could have avoided ever hearing again the complaint that Tottenham never won anything; that our names might have been engraved in the club’s history forevermore. This is what that penalty took from us.”
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