Klopp has spoken in depth about Karius' performance in the game against Real Madrid for the first time, over a month after the defeat.
Liverpool were bested 3-1 by the Spanish side, with two of the goals coming directly from huge mistakes from Loris Karius. The goalkeeper rolled the ball straight into Karim Benzema's leg for the opener, gifting the forward the easiest goal of his life. Then, he spilled a seemingly easy shot from Gareth Bale into the net late on, giving Real their third goal of the game.
After the game Karius was in tears, and he was slammed by fans and pundits. However, it was later revealed that he had travelled to America to seek medical consultation, where he was told that he had suffered a concussion during the game, when he took a knock to the head courtesy of Sergio Ramos.
Speaking to Liverpool's club website on Friday, Klopp went into detail about the ordeal, backing Karius after recent reports that the Merseyside club would not be purchasing a replacement goalkeeper this summer.
"The only thing I can say is he had a concussion in the game," Klopp said. “Whoever had a concussion knows there is not one way how it feels, there are different ways. He didn’t feel it obviously."
"He had a knock on his head and he felt that but he didn’t know he had a concussion. That’s how concussions are. The guy who has it is the last one to be aware of it probably."
The German coach revealed that he hadn't considered the possibility of a concussion until a few days after the game, when he was advised by Franz Beckenbauer to seek medical consultation.
“With all the intensity of the game, adrenaline and the disappointment after the game, nobody really thought about that," he explained. "I needed a few days, to be honest, to accept the fact and deal with the situation [of losing the final]. It was not that easy."
“After four days I got a call from Franz Beckenbauer, our Bobby Moore, our biggest football player who is a good friend of mine. He called me and said he came from a doctor, he told me: ‘your goalkeeper had a concussion.’"
"I said, ‘what?’ because in the game, from my position that situation is not very good to see: ‘maybe there was contact or not.’ I told him immediately, ‘OK’. He said the doctor is the most famous doctor in Germany. I said: ‘OK, give me a few minutes, I have to fix a few things.’"
For Klopp, Karius was playing well before the head injury, and the concussion explains his performance. “I got all the pictures from different perspectives," he said. "I saw it and thought: ‘how can we all think that the boy who didn’t show any weakness in that game until then made these big mistakes in a very important game and nobody thinks it’s because of the knock he got?’ How can we think that? That was, for me, the explanation and I thought: ‘OK, come on, we need to check that.’"
“I thought it was too late, you cannot check that. But now I know a concussion isn’t coming and going in a day – if you have one, you see it days later. Five days after the final, Loris had 26 of 30 markers for a concussion still. That’s clear."
However, neither he or Karius are looking to use this as an excuse. “If you ask Loris, he says he didn’t think about it and didn’t use it for a second as an excuse," he said. "We don’t use it as an excuse, we use it as an explanation."
"That’s always important, that’s what analysis should be: you explain why things happen. So, from this point of view, from my side everything is fine. We don’t think about that anymore and we start completely new.”