Carabao Cup: Liverpool hold nerve to beat Chelsea in 11-10 shootout to win title

Even in the penalty shoot-out the two heavyweights Liverpool and Chelsea were inseparable with 21 successful kicks ratcheting up the tension. 

Liverpool held their nerve to win an astonishing penalty shoot-out 11-10 and edge out Chelsea in the English League Cup final on Sunday (February 27) after a rip-roaring contest had somehow ended 0-0 after extra time at Wembley. Both sides could claim to have been deserving winners in a classic free-flowing encounter full of goalscoring chances, remarkable saves and four disallowed goals.

Even in the penalty shoot-out the two heavyweights were inseparable with 21 successful kicks ratcheting up the tension. In the end it came down to an unlikely duel between two goalkeepers with Liverpool’s young Irish shot-stopper Caoimhin Kelleher belting his penalty past Kepa Arrizabalaga who had replaced Edouard Mendy for the shoot-out.

Spaniard Arrizabalaga then blazed his effort over the bar into the massed ranks of Liverpool supporters who celebrated the club's first domestic Cup silverware for a decade. While Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp had won the Premier League and Champions League since arriving at Anfield, it was a rare cup success for the German who had won only two of his previous eight finals with Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool.

For Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel it meant his hopes of a fourth trophy in just over a year at Stamford Bridge fell just short. He won the Champions League last season and the European SuperCup and FIFA Club World Cup this season.

Klopp’s decision to stay loyal to stand-in keeper Kelleher, who has featured throughout the run to the final, rather than revert to Alisson, was richly rewarded, although the Irishman could hardly have imagined scoring the decisive penalty in a shootout.