Cup has suddenly become more than a sideshow for rivals

Sunday’s match means much more to Klopp and Pochettino

- Dan Kilpatrick

THE stakes at Wembley this weekend are far lower than the last meeting of Mauricio Pochettino and Jurgen Klopp in a final, when the 2019 Champions League was on the line, but the Carabao Cup still feels hugely significant for the two managers and their clubs.

Chelsea and Liverpool have tended to view this competition as a bonus rather than a priority — including when they met in the 2022 final, with Liverpool winning on penalties — and, while that remains technically true this season, Sunday’s match is about credibility for Pochettino and legacy for Klopp.

For Pochettino, the Chelsea head coach, it is a huge opportunity to transform the outlook of a so-far underwhelming first season at Stamford Bridge and begin changing the narrative about his own winning credentials. He has admitted he is “desperate” to lift the trophy, and understandably so.

There is also the prospect of the Argentine earning revenge on Klopp for Spurs’s 2-0 defeat by Liverpool in

Madrid five years ago, which was to prove his last chance of winning silverware with an English club until now.

Pochettino, who also lost the Carabao Cup Final to Chelsea in his first season at Spurs, broke his trophy duck with Paris Saint-Germain, where he won a Ligue 1 title and two domestic cups, but those honours count for relatively little in the court of public opinion, given the Qatari-backed club’s massive financial advantage over their rivals.