Robert Green: I know exactly how Loris Karius is feeling

The enormity of Loris Karius’ mistakes  on Saturday night were immediately obvious to the watching world. Being one of the watching millions, I knew exactly how he was feeling. It is a situation you can only truly understand if you’ve been there yourself as part of the goalkeeping union.

The over-riding emotion is that you have let your team-mates down. They’ve got you to that game with their displays over the course of a season and you have cost them. It’s horrible.

That feeling is not something you can share with anyone. There is nothing that anyone could have said to Karius  on Saturday night  that would have made him feel any better.

A lot was made of the fact that none of his team-mates went to comfort him immediately after the final whistle but that would have made no difference whatsoever, it just couldn’t have helped overcome that hollow pain.

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The crucial thing now is that he remains resolute and dogmatic. After making a mistake in England’s opening game of the 2010 World Cup, I knew there was another match three days later.

In a tournament you just crack on - the spotlight remains on you but the potential of success is still alive. For Karius the finality of it - literally, considering the stage he was on - makes it much worse. At 24, he is still young in goalkeeping terms and he has to look forward, but initially that will be difficult to do as he has the summer to dwell on this.

Having been there myself, I can say that you are labelled after an incident like this. You know you are being watched and everyone is waiting for you to make another mistake.

On the technical side there isn’t much you can do. He is at Liverpool and playing in a Champions League Final - technically he is already at the top level.

But the mental side is another issue. In my case I ended up basically thinking: “F*** everyone”. Unless it’s friends, family or team-mates, the risk of reading or listening to damaging and derogatory words are high, so I kept my counsel on it for two years but I know that now, someone will want speak to me for experiences of this sort.

People won’t let it go easily. That is difficult and you have to be really bloody-minded. I was very fortunate in that I went back to West Ham and their fans were absolutely unbelievable with me. I don’t know, but hope that Karius will get that from the Liverpool supporters, although time will tell if he will get the chance to find out. That is for the Liverpool management to work out, because he will get pelters at all away games next season, that’s for sure.

Sadly, the reality of being a goalkeeper is that you can only lose a game. You can help not lose it, but you can’t win it yourself. It’s just the nature of the job.

Looking back at my career, I would say that incidents such as these can prove to be a wonderful test of character. I learnt true life lessons - one of which is that despite a lifetime of trying, the world isn’t full of happy endings and romance. That is one Loris will already know all too well. I wish him all the best.

Robert Green has played as a goalkeeper for Norwich City, West Ham, QPR, Leeds United and Huddersfield, and won 12 caps for England between 2005 and 2012.