Jurgen Klopp believes Loris Karius’ errors in Liverpool’s Champions League final defeat were caused by a concussion.
Karius found himself involved in a collision with Real Madrid’s Sergio Ramos just minutes before his error helped Karim Benzema opened the scoring.
The Reds goalkeeper later mishandled a tame Gareth Bale attempt which saw the European champions retain their crown with a 3-1 victory in Kiev.
In the wake of Liverpool’s defeat at the Olimpiyskiy Stadium, a Boston hospital confirmed that Karius had suffered a mid-game concussion.
“I don’t know exactly what people think or made of the situation. The only thing I can say is he had a concussion in the game,” said Klopp.
“He was influenced by that knock, that is 100 per cent. What the rest of the world is making of it, I don’t care.
“It’s really not important what the people say. We do not use it as an excuse. Now people could think for us it is the explanation – and for me it is 100 per cent the explanation and that’s all.
“Whoever had a concussion knows there is not one way how it feels, there are different ways. He didn’t feel it obviously.
“He had a knock on his head and he felt that but he didn’t know he had a concussion. That’s how concussions are. The guy who has it is the last one to be aware of it probably.
“With all the intensity of the game, adrenaline and the disappointment after the game, nobody really thought about that.
“I needed a few days, to be honest, to accept the fact and deal with the situation (of losing the final). It was not that easy.
“After four days I got a call from Franz Beckenbauer, our Bobby Moore, our biggest football player who is a good friend of mine.
“He called me and said he came from a doctor, he told me, ‘Your goalkeeper had a concussion’. I said, ‘what?’ because in the game, from my position that situation is not very good to see. Maybe there was contact or not.
“I told him immediately, ‘OK’. He said the doctor is the most famous doctor in Germany. I said, ‘OK, give me a few minutes, I have to fix a few things’.
“I got all the pictures from different perspectives, saw it and thought, ‘How can we all think that the boy who didn’t show any weakness in that game until then made these big mistakes in a very important game and nobody thinks it’s because of the knock he got?’
“How can we think that? That was, for me, the explanation and I thought, ‘OK, come on, we need to check that.’
“I thought it was too late, you cannot check that. But now I know a concussion isn’t coming and going in a day – if you have one, you see it days later.
“Five days after the final, Loris had 26 of 30 markers for a concussion still. That’s clear.”