Matip limped off in Liverpool's 3-1 defeat by Borussia Dortmund
Monday 23 July 2018 08:00, UK
Joel Matip's injury during Liverpool's 3-1 loss to Dortmund was the "most negative thing about the day" in Jurgen Klopp's eyes.
The defender limped off 22 minutes into the pre-season friendly, three games after returning to play following surgery on an injury that cut short his 2017/18 season.
Klopp said the source of pain on Sunday was a different complaint that appeared to be a small muscle tear, although the extent of any damage had not been confirmed.
Liverpool 1-3 Borussia Dortmund
As it happened
"It's not the same injury. It's another muscle - it looks like, hopefully, only a little tear," the manager told liverpoolfc.com at a post-match press conference.
"We will see, but we cannot say any more about it now. It is, of course, the most negative thing about the day. It's not cool. Things like this can happen, but you don't want them to.
"Maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we will know more, but in this moment we only know that it was too painful for him to carry on."
Matip's last appearance of 2017/18 came in March, with the Cameroon centre-back sustaining a thigh injury against Crystal Palace and subsequently undergoing an operation.
He made his return to action in Liverpool's 0-0 friendly against Bury on July 14 and started again against Blackburn Rovers, which the Reds won 2-0.
Liverpool took the lead three minutes after Matip was replaced by Joe Gomez during the International Champions Cup tie at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sunday.
Virgil van Dijk pulled off a magnificent header from the edge of the six-yard box, supplied by Andrew Robertson following a short corner by Rafael Camacho.
Dortmund levelled up in the 66th, Christian Pulisic scoring from a penalty conceded by James Milner.
The sides looked to be heading for penalties until the 89th minute when Pulisic struck again following a counter-attack.
Three minutes into injury time and the Bundesliga side snatched their third, this time off the right foot of Jacob Bruun Larsen at point-blank range.
"On a day like this, you have to stay strong and show desire still or kind of greed that you at least want to keep the result at 1-1," Klopp said. "We have to learn from it, that's how it is, and then we have to go again."
"I don't want to excuse that result but we had these situations, we didn't use them or couldn't use them and then Dortmund scored a second and a third and that was really then too much, the fourth would have been possible after we lost the ball again, you could really see morale was down."
