The contrast could not have been greater.
There was Thomas Tuchel, his face drawn and pale, at a loss to explain what he had witnessed.
“It was not logical,” said the Borussia Dortmund manager. “I can give you a description, but not an explanation.”
Plenty inside the Anfield press room, tapping frantically away at their laptops, will have agreed with that notion.
And then there was Jurgen Klopp. Smiling, laughing, swearing, entertaining. What a manager Liverpool have. What a night for him and his players.
“Pretty cool,” is a phrase we have grown used to from Klopp. He used it here, too, but this was a night of fire, passion, noise, angst, will. It was a night of Red.
“Before the game, we went down the stairs and all my Dortmund friends asked me if all the players touch the ‘This is Anfield’ sign,” said Klopp. “I said ‘no’. I am not really sure what happens, but I think you need to win something first. It’s a sign of respect, I think. You don’t touch it because it’s too big.
“Maybe one day these players will be allowed to do it and feel better, stronger, and can use this emotion. Tonight, it was very emotional.”
His opposite number, meanwhile, was left to reflect on a game which Dortmund “had in our hands for long periods.” Much like his players during those final, delirious minutes, he looked lost.
He rejected the idea that the Anfield crowd had played its part in his side’s collapse.
Fair enough. Certainly, for an hour or more, his side had looked utterly unaffected by their surroundings. They were so comfortable in the first half, it looked a matter of damage limitation for Liverpool.
In the end, of course, it became so much more. “An outstanding atmosphere,” said Klopp. “Unbelievable,” agreed Tuchel, who rightly pointed out that Dortmund’s fans had played their part too.
Unsurprisingly, both coaches referenced Istanbul in their post-match conferences, although Klopp was quick to point out that mentioning that night is one thing, replicating it is quite another.
“This is no time for comparisons,” he said when asked where the night ranked in his list of great games. “I have had 500 games as a manager, and you ask me about the same four or five. They are easy to remember. I don’t have to compare. Tonight was brilliant in itself.”
So while Tuchel and his players head home distraught, with their season hinging on a German Cup semi final with Hertha Berlin next week, Liverpool thoughts now turn to the last four of this competition. Shakhtar Donetsk, Villarreal and the holders Sevilla await.
“We will 100% be drawn against a hard team,” Klopp remarked, but he knows his players, his much-maligned players, have shown they can handle such challenges. If they can do this, they can do anything. “Real potential,” he said. “The players did this tonight, not me.”
“I know that this is a place for big football moments,” he added. “We didn’t start the story. That was down to other people. But we know our responsibilities, and we try to write a few nice stories ourselves.
“For me, it’s important that when we play not so good, you guys remember ‘ah, but against Dortmund they were really good!’”
They were Jurgen, they were. Nobody who was inside Anfield, or watching on television through their fingers, will ever forget this night.
