Andy Robertson hopes that Liverpool’s victory in the Club World Cup will lead to English clubs taking the competition more seriously and building more interest across the nation.
The Reds became just the second Premier League side to claim the trophy and it will expand to a 24 team tournament from 2021.
The left-back says it is clear that it is seen differently in various parts of the world, with South American teams seeing it as a badge of honour to take on the cream of the crop from Europe.
The Mirror reported Robertson as saying:
“I don’t think the perception in South America needs to change,if they had won, there was going to be parties on the streets.
“In England, I suppose everyone has just moved on with their lives.
“I think it is because not many English teams have been here.
“Down in England, everyone tends to focus on the Carabao Cup because everyone can win it.”
Despite being a maligned competition, there was a piece of silverware up for grabs against Flamengo, and Robertson said the team wanted to grab it with both hands, taking lessons learnt from their Champions League final experience.
“Leading up to the first Champions League final in 2018 where we got beat, we said to ourselves that we may not be here again, play with no regrets.
“We did that and fell short, but the following season we were back.
“We didn’t expect that.
“To get here, you need to win Champions League and we know just how hard that is from the last two years.
“We needed to take it like we’ll never be back and now we’re world champions for 2019.”
Robertson looked back with pride over the success that Liverpool have had in 2019, but he also said it is important to continue the momentum into the new calendar year.
“Look, that’s three for 2019, we have won the Champions League, Super Cup and now this.
“To win three in any calendar year is special – and these are big ones.
“The Champions League is absolutely massive. The Super Cup and the Club World Cup are massive to us.
“We are really excited about it but we have got to take the momentum into 2020.
“Hopefully there are a couple more of these scenes of us lifting trophies above our head to come.”
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