Jurgen Klopp was relieved after winning the Champions League as he praised Liverpool's owners for never pressuring his team.
Liverpool claimed its first trophy since Klopp took charge in late 2015, beating Tottenham 2-0 in a lacklustre decider in Madrid on Saturday. While Klopp has overseen clear progress at the helm, there was still plenty of talk about the lack of silverware since his arrival at Anfield.
The German had lost his previous six finals and he was left satisfied after finally claiming success at the Wanda Metropolitano. "I feel mostly relieved to be honest, relieved for my family actually because they are pretty close to me, as you can imagine," Klopp told a news conference.
"And the last six times, we always flew on holiday with the silver medal, which doesn't feel too cool. And this is completely different this year, so it's for them as well. And that's great.
"It's for our supporters, but for our owners as well, because they never put real pressure on us, they appreciate the development, they see the steps we make. It's for them as well, it's great.
"[It's] for the players — we were all pretty much crying on the pitch because it was so emotional, it was so big, it means so much to us."
Mohamed Salah's second-minute penalty put Liverpool in control before a rather dull final was sealed by Divock Origi in the 87th minute. Klopp said the break of almost three weeks between games and warm weather in Spain contributed to the battle against Spurs.
"I've lost a lot more finals than I've won obviously, and we always played better football," he said.
"Tonight, it was a big challenge for both teams to deal with the three weeks, because you never have a period where you have three weeks with no game. So [it's a matter of] keeping the rhythm or getting the rhythm back actually. Then, obviously there were different circumstances for two English teams tonight; it was pretty warm.
"So, you saw that it was a fight and the final is about the result."
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