Jurgen Klopp celebrated being the first Liverpool manager to win 50 games in Europe by mocking the pitch in Linz.
On Thursday evening, the Reds recovered from behind to win 3-1 at LASK in Austria to kick off their Europa League group campaign.
It moved Klopp ahead of Rafael Benitez and brought him to a half-century of success in European competition in the Anfield hotseat.
“Let me put it this way: if I still have 50 after the group stage, even if I still have the most wins in Europe as a Liverpool manager, everybody will hate that!” he added. The greatest number of wins, yet everyone despises it!
“So it’s nice – we’ve played a lot of games in Europe, but it’s good that we’ve won that many and that we’ve frequently qualified for finals, no it’s great, but that’s probably because the competition now has so many more games than in the past!”
The visit of Liverpool was the biggest game in the brief history of the Raffeisen Arena, which opened in February.
Klopp, on the other hand, was dissatisfied with the playing surface, saying, “The atmosphere is great, but the pitch is really bad, so I’m glad we didn’t play here in December.” It was a fantastic experience, and I adored the atmosphere.”