Loris Karius blew it but at least he did not sing
After the Debacle of Kiev, Loris Karius may never really recover as a keeper and almost certainly not as a Liverpool player. But that still may not make him the most notorious goalkeeper in British football history.
And there it is Real Madrid are Champions League holders for a record-breaking third consecutive season. But the bare match facts of a 3–1 win over Liverpool in Kiev barely do the game justice.
Liverpool had already suffered the devastating blow of losing top scorer Mohamed Salah in the first half — with a shoulder injury sustained in a challenge with Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos — before Gareth Bale scored one of European football’s greatest ever goals to give Real Madrid a 64th minute 2–1 lead. The Welshman, the subject of endless summer transfer speculation, later consolidated his stellar contribution with a third goal in a man of the match cameo from the bench.
But for Liverpool fans across the globe, the talk is not of Bale, or Real’s peerless feat, but of one of the great goalkeeping horror-shows of all time, performed by their own Loris Karius.
In 51 minutes, the hapless German keeper’s attempted throw rebounded off Karim Benzema’ and rolled into the net to break the deadlock. And Karius compounded the error, many times over, by fisting Gareth Bale’s 83rd…