You’d be hard pressed to find a wilder scoreless match than what Chelsea and Liverpool put together in Sunday’s Carabao Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. The two teams had their share of VAR-negated goals and missed chances in the 120 minutes of action, but naturally, goals came easy during the penalty shootout.
It was Chelsea’s strategic substitution that came back to bite Thomas Tuchel and the Blues, though.
Late in extra time, Chelsea removed star goalkeeper Edouard Mendy for backup Kepa Arrizabalaga in anticipation of the penalty shootout. Despite his struggles with Chelsea, Kepa has been able to come up big as a penalty specialist. The move made sense, but that trend didn’t continue at Wembley.
Both Liverpool and Chelsea converted on every penalty attempt (20!) to the point that the keepers had to shoot. And while Caoimhin Kelleher converted on a perfectly struck penalty, Kepa’s attempt was about as bad as it could get.