Liverpool clinched their historic 10th League Cup title in a clash against Chelsea on Sunday.
Virgil van Dijk's superb glancing header in the latter part of extra time secured the victory for the Merseyside outfit, overshadowing VAR-disallowed goals during regulation time.
Yet, Pep Lijnders knows it's not just about star players, it's about the grit and determination displayed by Liverpool's academy talents.
Back in August 2023, Lijnders discussed the change in the academy culture with Training Ground Guru. And, oh boy, he was right all along.
"The Academy normally is a competitor for the scouting department," Lijnders began. "So we brought the best talents together in all the age groups to show them to the first-team coach, because the relationship between the manager and youth player, that makes a good Academy."
"For example, when Jurgen has to decide to buy a right defender or he goes with the 17 or 18-year-old Trent Alexander-Arnold? Who is he going to choose? When he doesn’t know the boy, when he only played in the 18s? He will go for the signing."
"The scouting will come, 'I have this good right defender, blah blah blah…' With the Talent Group, we bring them, for example we do the same here."
"We train at four in the afternoon, at two o’clock is the Talent Group, and then we can see, ‘Ok, these talents are coming and they are already coming with us on pre-season and they stay one time a week when the season starts they train here.'"
"With this we create a relationship and we create hope for all the others in the Academy. And that makes, I really believe, this inside pathway of the club. If that’s strong, if you produce your own players, they will never let you down, never."
"They will run through walls for you. If I now see Conor Bradley, Luke Chambers, Calum (Scanlon), James McConnell, Ben Doak, Stefan Bajcetic last year."
"You need balls, you need guts to put these young players and that is what we want. We had the luck that our seniors – Milner, Hendo, Lallana, Jinny, Mo, Sadio – they always really took care of the young ones and I think this is one of the reasons we were successful, this balance in the squad."
