English soccer giants Liverpool and Chelsea came head to head for the second time in Wembley fighting for the FA Cup, the much desired domestic trophy that Liverpool’s Kostas Tsimikas claimed.
In an agonising match the two fought like equals. Liverpool dominated the first half and Chelsea came back hard on the second half which resulted in the Blues and Reds taking the game all the way to penalties on the back of 120 minutes stacked full of disallowed goals.
After two hours of tension and missed opportunities from both sides, Wembley prepared for another shootout.
This is how the penalties unfolded:
- Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso scores (1-0)
- Liverpool’s James Milner scores (1-1)
- Chelsea’s Cesar Azpilicueta misses (1-1)
- Liverpool’s Thiago Alcantara scores (1-2)
- Chelsea’s Reece James scores (2-2)
- Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino scores (2-3)
- Chelsea’s Ross Barkley scores (3-3)
- Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold scores (3-4)
- Chelsea’s Jorginho scores (4-4)
- Liverpool’s Sadio Mane misses (4-4)
- Chelsea’s Hakim Ziyech scores (5-4)
- Liverpool’s Diogo Jota scores (5-5)
- Chelsea’s Mason Mount misses (5-5)
- Liverpool’s Kostas Tsimikas scores (5-6)
And while the shootout went to sudden death, former Olympiacos defender Kostas Tsimikas, 26, stepped up to give Liverpool the cup.
“Yeah it was like very very stressful but I tried to calm down myself to try to be focused and to shoot the ball in the right side,” Tsimikas told talkSPORT revealing that even though he’s scored goals before, this was actually the first penalty of his career.
“I went [on] because Robbo [Andy Robertson] had the cramps. At the end [Klopp] asked me which number I want, I said to him seven, I thought maybe he wanted to put me earlier but it was the number I chose from the start and I’m very very glad for that.”
