I wouldn’t normally trust any part of the Sky apparatus — not its news outlet nor any of its fifty-something sports channels — or any single individual within it to strike the right note with regard to a memorable event or special occasion, but 13 years ago next Friday they somehow managed it. “Even a stopped clock…” I guess.
“That was Rome, back in 1977,” began a certain presenter, hairy of hand and now formerly of that parish, as the dust settled on the small hours of a Turkish Thursday morning in May, “when Emlyn Hughes lifted the trophy aloft. He did it again 12 months later, at Wembley. That was 2. In 1981 Phil Thompson did it in Paris, and in 1984 Graeme Souness, back in Rome”. And as he spoke, a montage of red jerseys, giant silver trophies and smiling faces flickered across the screen, before the camera returned to him for the final word. “But this has been the greatest comeback of all time in the European Cup, this without doubt has been Liverpool’s best. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, you might never see another night like it”.
This was all delivered in a low-key fashion, about as dispassionate as you would expect from an individual who likes Liverpool so much that his “early shout” last summer was Jürgen Klopp’s European Cup finalists finishing below Everton, a club which will soon have won as many Merseyside Derbies this century as Liverpool have played European finals (thanks to
Phil Blundell for that mind-boggling stat, by the way). But the words nonetheless rang true and carried with them a sense both of the momentousness of what the world had just witnessed and the exquisite fortune that had been bestowed upon Liverpool supporters: not only was the manner of its attainment once-in-a-lifetime in nature, both literally incredible and absolutely unforgettable, the prize itself was intimately familiar to an extent that few clubs ever get to experience.
Then he faded out and there followed a slow, soft piano intro playing a familiar air, the soundtrack to a second montage that was odd at first, featuring as it did what appeared to be a couple of elderly Turkish gents smiling to camera and clad in Liverpool red and AC Milan white. And the Twin Peaks vibe didn’t end there — the tune was a spoken-word version of In My Life by the Beatles performed by Sean Connery which, although it was my first time hearing it, was apparently released in 1998.
Now, on paper, it’s a concept that shouldn’t work, and I dare say that many a music critic has probably argued that it doesn’t, either on paper
or tape. But it did. It does. If context truly is everything, then the aftermath of the 2005 Champions League final was the perfect time to become acquainted with Connery’s version of the Beatles classic, his Scottish drawl meticulously caressing words that suddenly took on additional layer of meaning that was surely never intended. “There are places I’ll remember all my life, though some have changed. Some forever, not for better, some have gone, and some remain. All these places have their moments, with lovers and friends, I still can recall. Some are dead, and some are living. In my life, I’ve loved them all”.
And then the original “Fab Four” took it away as the highlights of the match played once more, led, of course, by John Lennon singing about memories losing their meaning when he thinks of love as something new, before giving it back to Connery, accompanied by a gorgeous string arrangement, to finish: “Though I know I’ll never lose affection for people and things that went before, I know I’ll often stop and think about them, in my life I love you more”. And then once more for emphasis as Rafa Benítez held the trophy aloft onscreen: “In my life I love you more”.
Wow. Music and football: they just go together, don’t they?
* * *
Of course, music goes well with almost
any activity, but it has a special and obvious connection with football.
From the moment you first set foot inside a ground, you’re either listening to thousands of people singing or singing yourself, ideally both. Indeed, music is indivisible from the very concept of “support” itself: in football, song is elemental. And leaving aside the very public act of singing for your club, your city or your country inside the stadium or in the streets and pubs outside, there is also a very inward, personal quality to the relationship between music and football: remember the good times, or the bad, and there’s probably a soundtrack playing somewhere in the back of your mind, even if it’s only a line of a verse or a snippet of a chorus. The crucial extra dimension it adds to one of life’s great pleasures can neither be denied nor overestimated.
As the players stood in the tunnel in Rome before the 1984 European Cup final,
they didn’t know what it was but they loved it. The taste of love was sweet when hearts like ours met in 2005. In 2016 it was three little birds singing sweet songs of melodies pure and true, facilitated by the arrival of a manager who had once used musical terms to explain the differences between his tactical philosophy (“heavy metal”) and that of Arséne Wenger (“an orchestra”). There was, of course, many a song sung over the years about the big, “fuckin’ ‘ard” midfield colossus from Huyton who lifted number five 13 years ago (such an impact did both player and song have that variations still ring out in stadia across England today, some 3 years after his retirement and very often not from the mouths of Liverpool supporters), and a time when we just couldn’t seem to get enough of the Uruguayan no. 7 with magic in his feet.
We’ve had La Bamba, She Loves You and the best midfield in the world, and Brian Reade even recalls being sat in front of his granny’s black and white TV in 1964 watching footage of Liverpool supporters going through customs in Brussels airport singing “HP baked beans, they’re the beans for me, HP baked beans, they’re the beans for me, what’s the treat we all love best…HP baked beans” ahead of the club’s second ever away trip in Europe. Yes: Liverpool’s legacy in this competition stretches all the way back to the days when baked beans were considered a treat.
Alongside these, of course, have stood the standards about the glory ‘round the Fields of Anfield Road, about the golden sky and sweet silver song of the lark, borrowed from Pete St. John and Rodgers and Hammerstein respectively. And it hasn’t just been one-way traffic: the legendary Pink Floyd sampled the Kop singing You’ll Never Walk Alone for their 1971 song Fearless, and a paraphrased line from it adorns the masthead of this very website: “You pick the place and I’ll choose the time, and I’ll climb the hill in my own way”.
More recently, Allez Allez Allez has become another fantastic addition to the canon, but the song that has (understandably, given how many goals he’s scored) come to dominate the 2017/18 season for Liverpool supporters goes like this: “
Mo Salah, Mo Salah, Mo Salah, running down the wing, Salah –la –la –la –la –la –la the Egyptian King” to the tune of Sit Down by James. And it’s perfect, especially when that Scouse twang meets those la’s and the name of said Egyptian King suddenly slips effortlessly into the local dialect. Gloriously perfect. And, naturally perhaps, it will have prompted a few of us to go back and reconsider the tune that it’s based on.
* * *
Sit Down was originally released in the summer of 1989, a period of time that would in retrospect be recognised as the end of an era. I’m sure we’re all aware of the raw numbers by now, but here, for the sake of completeness, are a few of the choicer ones: since their return to English football’s top division ahead of the 1962/63 season, Liverpool had been crowned champions of England 12 times in the previous 27 years; the club had finished in the top-2 on 19 occasions during the same period, including for the previous 8 consecutive seasons; 4 European Cups had been claimed in 8 years from 1977 to 1984, 7 European finals reached in 12 years from 1973 to 1985, and 4 League Cups in a row won between 1981 and 1984.
The late, great Brian Moore had it right the previous year when featuring on yet another song associated with the club: Liverpool did indeed have “more silver than Buckingham Palace”. They still do, of course: trophies do not simply disappear. But as the 1989/90 season dawned, changes as imperceptible as they were tectonic were happening.
Crystal Palace were famously dispatched 9-0 at Anfield in September 1989 but by the following April had figured out a way to redress the balance, winning the FA Cup semi-final between the sides 4-3 after extra-time in a game where Liverpool twice lost the lead. Manchester United would beat them in the final after a replay, Alex Ferguson’s first trophy at the club (best wishes to him on a speedy recovery, by the way) and a victory that would prove infinitely more significant in the years to come than it perhaps seemed at the time. The seeds for manager Kenny Dalglish’s eventual exit from the club had already been sown, and captain Alan Hansen would retire at the end of the season.
Liverpool’s 18th League title triumph in May 1990 might have appeared to be business as usual, but it wasn’t. By the time James re-released a shorter version of their song to far greater acclaim in 1991, the club was in the early years of a title drought that has been ongoing for 28 years and counting.
It has now been 56 years since Bill Shankly brought Liverpool up from the old Second Division, a period that splits nicely into two halves of 28 years each. The first half (1962—1990) saw 13 League titles, 4 European Cups, 2 UEFA Cups, 4 FA Cups and 4 League Cups won; the second (1990—2018) has, to date, seen 0 League titles, 1 European Cup, 1 UEFA Cup, 3 FA Cups and 4 League Cups won. Excluding those awarded for once-off games (e.g. Charity/Community Shield, European Super Cup), that’s 27 pieces of major silverware in the first 28 years, reduced to 9 in the last 28, albeit with a chance to make it 10 next on Saturday 26th May.
Given all of this, you might be forgiven, especially the older heads whose eyes saw the glories of the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s first-hand, if you were tempted to take another line from Sit Down, one that doesn’t feature in the version dedicated to the 2017/18 PFA and FWA Player of the Season, and relate it back to Liverpool: “Now I’ve swung back down again and it’s worse than it was before, If I hadn’t seen such riches I could live with being poor”.
You might be forgiven but, while it’s a wonderful line, on closer inspection it doesn’t really fit Liverpool, does it? Everton, maybe, or perhaps Nottingham Forest or Leeds United, clubs whose last major trophies arrived in 1995, 1990 and 1992 respectively, and the latter of whom have split the last 19 (Forest) and 14 years (Leeds) between the Championship and League One. But not Liverpool. Never Liverpool.
* * *
I believe one of the more popular jokes about the club that does the rounds amongst opposition fanbases is this idea of “next year will be our year”, the concept being that Liverpool supporters are caught in an endless annual loop of anticipating success that never arrives. A related dig is the accusation that we live in the past, which is, I suppose, understandable coming from supporters of clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City whose status as “big clubs” only really began to develop, respectively, from 1997 and 2011 onwards — a staggering 18 of Chelsea’s 22 major trophies have arrived in the most recent 21 years of their 113-year history (it could become 19 of 23 before the end of the season), while 7 of Manchester City’s 16 have been won in the last 7 years of their 124-year existence, again excluding trophies awarded for single games.
History must be a lot less palatable for them, right enough. But while all of this, I’m sure, falls under Alan Partridge’s definition of “great banter”, there is a sizeable misapprehension involved all the same. What’s missing is an understanding, or perhaps a basic acceptance, that this club has never fallen. Not truly. At its weakest over the past 28 years, and I mean on its knees or at least as close as it ever got (October 2010 the undoubted nadir, with Hodgson managing expectations on the pitch as financial doom approached off it), the club was less a giant sleeping than it was a giant stumbling. Slightly: enough to allow others move ahead, but never out of sight.
As disappointing as it felt whenever the good times turned to relative drought, it was never
bad. We never had to “live with being poor”. Not even close, not
on the pitch anyway. As an example, in the 56 years since Shankly led Liverpool back to the top division the club has never finished outside the top-8 of English football. Chelsea, meanwhile, were in the second tier as recently as 1989, Manchester City in the third as recently as 1999. Even Manchester United, Liverpool’s greatest rivals who have consistently set the bar for where this club should be aiming, were relegated during that period. Counting international tournaments alone, the club has won 4, finished runners-up in 3, and reached the semi-final of 3 more since its re-admittance to European football in 1991. Add in domestic trophies, and by my count the club has gone to the semi-final, or further, of 23 major competitions in the last 28 years. That’s not poverty: that’s riches.
9 major trophies in the last 28 years (throw in a pair of European Super Cups to make it 11 if you wish) only tells a fraction of the story. When I mention places like Rome, Cardiff, Dortmund, Turin, Istanbul, Monaco, Barcelona, Marseille, Milan, Madrid, London, Manchester and Porto, those are the very definition of “places I’ll remember all my life”, each one invested with glorious memories that immediately come flooding back in the same way as names like Fowler, Owen, Gerrard, Carragher, Torres, Alonso, Suárez, Sturridge, Coutinho, Reina, Hyypiä, Litmanen, Agger, Mascherano, McManaman, Garcia, Sterling, Berger, Rush, Barnes, Beardsley (I could go on), all of whom have pulled on the red shirt post-1990 and contributed to the continuous sense of joy we’ve felt following this great club. Then there’s Houllier, Benítez and Klopp, all of whom have led the club to European finals in that time. There are very few fanbases in the world who have been so blessed, and this during what has been a lean period relative to what went before.
Now other names will join that list. Kiev will, hopefully, forever hold fond memories after the 26th, but others have already secured that legacy: most notably the goal heroes against Porto, Manchester City and Roma (Mané, Salah, Firmino, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Wijnaldum), but also the captain and vice-captain who have led brilliantly (Henderson and Milner), the members of a defensive unit that has, perhaps, overcome individual shortcomings at times to collectively get the job done (led by Van Dijk and Robertson, ably assisted by Lovren, Karius and local lad Alexander-Arnold), and an assortment of supporting characters — Can (whose goal against Hoffenheim at Anfield in August had his manager excitedly shrieking “That’s football!!”), Matip, Lallana, Clyne, Gomez, Moreno, Klavan, Mignolet, Ings, Solanke.
Collectively, all of these lads have contributed to varying degrees and broken records while doing so (Salah may yet break an individual one too, of course, even if it would take something truly spectacular in the final). And as unexpected as this turn of events has been, in so far as very few of us would have tipped Liverpool to reach the Champions League final as they lined up against Hoffenheim on 15 August, it doesn’t exactly feel like a surprise either. That’s because competing for the game’s top prizes continues to be stitched into the club’s DNA, something to which this campaign has simply remained true. If, as Liverpool supporters, we typically end one season burning with frustration at whatever trophies have been left behind and immediately look ahead for the next opportunity to right that wrong, then we are merely doing the same.
Nights like the visits of Manchester City and Roma to Anfield last month, Kiev on the final Saturday in May, or indeed Istanbul in 2005 or Athens in 2007, are not a
right, yet they always seem distinctly possible. The club, aside from a 6-month period under that arch-steerer of ships Roy Hodgson, has never given us a reason to see them any other way. Liverpool have now reached 5 European finals this century — the same number as Arsenal (2), Chelsea (3), Manchester City (0) and Tottenham (0)
combined. Manchester United have reached 4 in the same period. This, remember, during a relatively unsuccessful period.
There remains a straight road, patched in places but still very much intact, between the present and the past, and everything that has happened this season is part of it. So when it becomes clear that Mo Salah is chasing Ian Rush’s 47-goal haul from 1984, it doesn’t seem like distant history but instead something you can reach out and touch. Ian Rush, watching the first leg against Roma alongside Gérard Houllier and Kenny Dalglish. Ian Rush, nearly looking young enough to still do a job for some lower-division side. Graeme Souness, working on Irish TV the same night, looking fresher than Neil Lennon sat beside him. These are still relatively young men, whose greatest triumph in Liverpool red, 34 years ago next Wednesday, is inextricably and absolutely part of the same journey as this current one.
There is no “past” here, no far-off point or lost era in the club’s history before it all went wrong and the reset button was pressed. There is no “now” and “then”. There is only one straight, unbroken road upon which Jürgen Klopp and Joe Fagan, Mohammed Salah and Ian Rush, Jordan Henderson and Graeme Souness, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters who support and have supported this club, are all walking, albeit 34 years apart. And when you look at it like that, Liverpool no longer seem like quite such an underdog in this final.
* * *
Jürgen Klopp’s last five finals as a manager have all ended in defeat, so the story goes, but his team has very often been the outsider in those games, certainly in the 2013 Champions League final (lost 1-2 to Bayern in the dying minutes of normal time), the 2014 DFB-Pokal (lost 0-2, to Bayern again, aet) and the 2016 League Cup final (lost on penalties to Manchester City aet), while in the 2016 Europa League final (lost 1-3 to Sevilla) he was managing the 8th-best team in England against a side going for an unprecedented third Europa League in a row. It doesn’t reflect on his abilities as a manager so much as it reflects that he has yet to manage a truly superior squad of players in a final.
The 2018 Champions League final will be no different: Real will justifiably enter the NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium as favourites on the 26th. I’ll leave the bulk of the tactical analysis for others infinitely more qualified to do so than me, but the obstacles that Liverpool face are significant.
For example, they will, for all intents and purposes, be choosing from only 6 players who have the requisite quality, fitness and experience to fill the 6 midfield and forward positions, that is unless Jürgen Klopp fancies throwing a player severely lacking match sharpness (Lallana) or a 19 year-old right-back with limited midfield experience at this level (Alexander-Arnold) into the fray against the likes of Kroos and Modrić, or feels that Solanke and Ings can somehow outgun Ramos and Varane (while Divock Origi has had a tough season on loan at relegation-threatened Wolfsburg, it’s a pity that he hasn’t been available these past few weeks). The only outfield position with any real depth was right-back, that is until Joe Gomez went down. What’s more, this has been the case for weeks, the physical and mental strain falling upon the same shoulders time and time again. If the game goes to extra-time, it certainly won’t favour the team in red.
This is Real’s fourth trip to the final in 5 years (only one La Liga title since 2012, mind, and two in 10 years). They ooze experience, quality in depth (e.g. two of Isco, Bale and Asensio will likely be available from the bench) and ruthless know-how. Every decision in Liverpool’s favour from the officials, contentious and otherwise, will no doubt draw their ire, while the only one of their opponents likely to do the same will be stood in the technical area, far away from the referee. As for the occasion, it’s difficult to imagine them being daunted by something that virtually all of them have experienced 3 times already. No Liverpool player has anywhere
near that kind of top-level experience — each one of those games against City and Roma was arguably the biggest occasion of their careers, until the next one, and then that became the biggest. So too now, unquestionably, becomes this one.
Liverpool have a few potential advantages too, of course, including youth (their likely starting XI will comprise an average age of 25.8 vs. Real’s 29.1, with Milner the only player over 30 vs. five in Madrid’s), pace (in particular Salah and Mané, of course), and arguably the best manager and best player, on form, in the world this season, along with the most expensive defender in history who has regularly played like it since his arrival in January.
They also possess a style of play that has frequently epitomised the military maxim that no plan survives the first shot fired (or, perhaps more aptly for Klopp’s brand of football, Mike Tyson’s famous comment that “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”). At its best, it represents more than just an equalising force. It was once good enough to ransack a Real Madrid team that included Ramos and Varane in the heart of its defence (4-1), a result and performance that were perhaps unexpected, but when the “Gegenpress” works the outcome is very often shocking — it put Liverpool 5-0 up in a European Cup semi-final, for example. It has also typically excelled against top quality opposition (e.g. to the tune of 9 goals in 3 games against Pep Guardiola’s record-breaking Manchester City team), a category which very much includes Real Madrid. While it may not be enough on the 26th, if Liverpool do win it will almost certainly be a victory built on running that high octane engine until it’s fit to combust.
Liverpool won’t be the least bit complacent either, as could
conceivably be the case with Madrid. Even if the Spaniards aren’t (they probably won’t be, in fairness), I would expect Zidane to set his team up to play their own game and not make any particularly intricate plans to blunt their opponents. And while you certainly couldn’t criticise the manager of the reigning double-European champions for setting his team of superstars up to play in their usual way, I don’t think I need to tell anyone here that the tried and trusted way to beat Klopp’s team since his arrival on Merseyside, for everyone from relegation-battlers to championship contenders, has been to sit deep and frustrate the shit out of them. The fact that Real are unlikely to do that is a positive thing in and of itself: I certainly don’t relish the prospect of Marcelo attacking the right-hand side of Liverpool’s defence, for example, but I do like the idea of him leaving Mo Salah for his centre-backs to pick up. Liverpool’s front three thrive on space: I
beseech Real to give it to them.
Perhaps the most important ace in Liverpool’s deck is that unbroken road. Aside from AC Milan (with whom Liverpool have relatively recent history, of course), the only club with more European Cup pedigree is the opponent in this final. Liverpool’s players will be wearing a patch with the number 5 on their arms, theirs will be wearing 12. And yet ever since Joey went Munching Gladbach in Rome on 25th May (that date again) 1977, 41 years ago next Friday week, the clubs are virtually neck-and-neck in this competition: Liverpool won in 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984 and 2005, Real in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2014, 2016 and 2017, and should the Reds win on the 26th the tally will become 6-6 over that time period (in fact, 6-6 since 1966). They name their European Cup triumphs (la Décima, la Undécima, la Duodécima, etc.), well so do we — Istanbul was simply “number five”, a win in Kiev would be number six.
If Real Madrid — players, management and fans — feel at home being one-half of world football’s biggest club occasion, then so should we. This remains Liverpool, one of only 2 clubs (the other being Chelsea in 2012) to win a European Cup final in their opponents’ own stadium. This remains Liverpool, looking to move back into sole possession of third place on the all-time European Cup roll of honour, ahead of Barcelona and Bayern Munich. This remains Liverpool, the club that beat Real Madrid in Paris in 1981 (a season where the Reds finished off the pace domestically having drawn too many games — sound familiar?), and then humbled them 5-0 across two legs in 2009 as one of their friendly Spanish publications arrogantly wondered “Esto es Anfield…¿Y que?” on its front page. The depth and experience of their squad trumps Liverpool’s, but their pedigree in this competition most certainly does not.
In other words, historically, our players have no more reason to fear them than they do us. The weight of history should be a boon rather than a burden in that context. It’s what should serve as a sharp reminder to these players, every bit as much as the Champions League-record 46 goals scored in this year’s competition, that they belong here, in this final, on this night. It comes with the territory, you see. If they remember that, then I’m confident they’ll be able to leave the nerves at the door where they belong and play to their potential right from the start, and if they do that much…then Real will have their hands full, regardless of the result. I’m sure we’d all take that right now.
* * *
There’s a scene in the film The Shawshank Redemption, where Tim Robbins’ character commandeers a record player, places it in front of the prison intercom and locks the door so that Wiley, the Corrections Officer supervising him, can’t get in. Then he flips the switch and suddenly the corridors and cells of the bleakest place imaginable — the plate shop, the laundry line, the wood shop, the kitchen, the loading dock, the exercise yard — are filled with the exquisite sounds of Mozart’s Canzonetta Sull’aria. The movie script describes Andy Dufresne’s reaction to the music as follows: “Andy sinks into Wiley’s chair, overcome by its beauty”.
It isn’t long before the warden shows up and, through the glass of the locked door, commands his prisoner to “open the door…open it up!” Then “turn that off!” The smile on Andy’s face momentarily dims at this intrusion of grim reality. He sits up, shifts uncomfortably and fidgets with his hands, perhaps considering the consequences of not obeying. The blissful smile now replaced with a frown, he leans over and reaches towards the record player, then hesitates. “I am warning you Dufresne, turn that off!” comes the command again, and you’re sure that he’s about to meekly comply. Instead, he reaches for the volume and turns it up while looking the warden dead in his eyes, the smile now returned to his face.
Personally, I’m at the point where I’ve considered turning the music off and now I’m doubling down. It’s easy to be pessimistic. It’s easy to focus on the enormity of what’s at stake and how difficult it will be to achieve, and the sense of disappointment that will surely follow if Liverpool lose. But there are 2 key points to remember: (a) there’s nothing more exciting in football than your team being in a European Cup final, nothing; and (b) this is the only part of the experience that’s
guaranteed, right here. I’ve fallen prey myself to thoughts of Real Madrid dominating the game, doing what AC Milan did so many times in 2005 and opening Liverpool up at will, but honestly, what’s the point? This is not the time for worrying, this is the time for dreaming. Otherwise, if the worst does happen, the only memories we’ll be left with, out of the whole experience of Liverpool reaching club football’s biggest occasion once again, will be defined by fear and worry followed by crushing disappointment.
“Dufresne, you're mine now” the sadistic Captain Hadley leers, tapping the glass with his baton. But what does it matter if, like Andy Dufresne, we get the equivalent of 2 weeks in the hole afterwards for daring to dream? If Andy had “Mr. Mozart to keep me company”, then we too will have some worthy companions to remember fondly, whatever comes to pass on the 26th. So enjoy these moments, be proud, defiant, and hope these lads do the same. The last time Liverpool played Real Madrid, then-manager Brendan Rodgers saw fit to rest key players, a controversial move that many took to be a tacit acceptance of defeat. Whatever else it was, it suggested fear. I expect nothing of the sort this time, the only acceptance of anything by these Redmen, hopefully, being that of a big silver trophy by Jordan Henderson.
I suppose what I’m trying to say, if I was to distil all of this down into a few lines, is that we’ve conquered all of Europe, and we’re never gonna stop. From Paris down to Turkey, we’ve won the fucking lot. I’m trying to say, bring on your Internazionale, bring on your Roma by the score. Barcelona? Real Madrid? Who the fuck you trying to kid? I’m trying to talk about the dreams and songs we still have to sing, of the
continuing glory to be found ‘round the Fields of Anfield Road. Most of all, to paraphrase the song that has come to soundtrack a dream this season, I’m saying that I believe this wave will bear our weight. So let it flow.
