Defeat not the end but the start for Klopp's Reds
Liverpool are the nearly men again, but there will be better nights to come
The Beautiful Game? More like The Cruel Game.
There is no more painful experience than having to put your emotions into words at 5am on a Sunday, after your team have lost a Champions League final where the blows came one after another, each more devastating than the previous.
We lose our top scorer and talisman Mohamed Salah to injury after some expert arm-twisting from master of the dark arts Sergio Ramos, who escapes punishment for his cynical cheating throughout the match in Kiev.
Our goalkeeper Loris Karius makes more errors (two) than he did in his previous 32 competitive matches this season.
A Real Madrid substitute comes on and scores twice - one a worldie worthy of winning any final and the other, a hit-and-hope that results in the latest addition to the ever lengthening goalkeepers' bloopers reel.
At least misery had company. I watched the 3-1 defeat with my eldest son, Callum.
The last time Liverpool won the Champions League, Callum was not even born yet.
The last time Liverpool contested a Champions League final, he had just turned one.
Today, he has become a full-fledged Liverpool fan - as angry as I am when we lose and as ecstatic as I am when we win.
After the final whistle, my first words to him were: This is not the end, but the beginning. We will be back.
And I wasn't trying to put a brave face on things. Far from being despondent, I am optimistic.
Yes, it was a crushing end to an exhilarating European campaign, but I genuinely believe this is the first of many such memorable journeys under Juergen Klopp.
Even the most hardcore of fans surely did not expect their team to reach a Champions League final at the start of the season.
Not many expected a record-breaking season for our Egyptian signing, whom so many rival fans had simply labelled a Chelsea flop.
And the football - what a joy and a privilege it has been to watch this side.
But that is all the past now. Next season, a proper challenge to the Manchester City juggernaut needs to be mounted.
In April, on the eve of the Champions League quarter-final, first leg against City, Klopp said that the club need to write new chapters of glory for the current and next generation of fans like me and Callum.
"We need to be proud of our history, but we need to create our own," he said.
The tools for forging new history still need to be sharpened by Klopp. The thinness of the squad has been laid bare by the players we've had on the bench.
Yet, despite all this, Liverpool have punched above our weight this season.
We are the highest scorers ever in a Champions League season. We are the first team to have three players reach double figures for goals in a season and the first English Premier League team to reach a Champions League final and finish in the top four in the EPL since 2011.
I cannot wait to see where Klopp will take us when he begins charting the next phase of his roadmap for success.
Rival fans might laugh at our perennial "next season" outlook, but I have only three words to live by.
We Go Again.
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