Barca bewildered on a magical night of wit and wonder
ON a night when a nation, a continent — possibly even an entire planet — stood captivated by the kind of magic that only football can deliver, the most determined contrarian on earth could not argue against definitive proof of a higher power at work.
No, not anything as mundane as religion. But definitely an understanding that, in certain circumstances, a team can be absolutely blessed. Touched by something far more powerful than even talent, determination and demented drive.
Liverpool’s unique place in the lore and legend of this beautiful game, this sport that demands so much of its followers, has just been elevated beyond question forever more.
Yes, there genuinely is something special about that club. Their supporters haven’t, it turns out, been having us on with all that emotionally-charged nostalgia and those endless professions of Scouse exceptionalism.
Because, man alive, anfield? It truly is a place where miracles happen.
anyone who disputes these facts might as well take up flat Earth fanaticism, climate change denial and belief in the lizard people, just to complete the full house of idiotic ideologies.
What so many of us bore witness to last night went beyond tactics, team spirit or the individual ups and downs that key players can suffer over 90 minutes or so.
a Barcelona team who have just cruised to yet another La Liga title, a group still boasting so many of their greatest talents, including the finest footballer ever to lace up boots, weren’t so much beaten as broken in half by Jurgen Klopp’s killers.
Pulling together a starting XI containing a mix of regulars and irregulars alike, the German coach found a way to make the unbelievable entirely believable, starting by convincing his players that a 3-0 deficit from the first leg of their Champions League semi-final was an inconvenience, certainly… but not an insurmountable obstacle. Not for this club. Not at home.
Klopp understands that football has never been an exact science, with management owing as much to alchemy as it does to carefully calculated plans.
Last night, he turned hope into solid gold. Transformed the barest trace of
optimism into an unstoppable tide of noisy swagger. In the circumstances, Barca never stood a chance. Rarely can a team of such ability have appeared so bereft and busted even before the final whistle sounded. There was so much to admire from Liverpool that, to be honest, it’s hard to know where to start. How about at the end? Not the very end, but the final goal — the killer fourth that had been threatened from the moment the third had gone in. The wit and invention of Trent alexander-arnold, a local lad and academy product, in playing that corner to Divock Origi, needed to be seen to be believed.
Maybe, if they get to watch it back six or seven dozen times, the Barcelona defenders will actually believe what happened to them.
They were mugged. Duped. Done up like Catalonian kippers by a piece of scampish impudence that felt so very right. So very Liverpool.
Excluding Barca fans, anyone who didn’t enjoy that moment, a laugh-out-loud oddity in a game that can occasionally feel straitjacketed in big games at the highest level, needs watching.
It was arguably only bettered by the scenes at full-time, captured magnificently by the BT Sport team who took the game into homes across the UK.
The outpouring of emotion at full-time, the disbelief on the faces and in the voices of players grabbed for those ecstatic instant-reaction interviews… and then the communion between fans and players, as the battle hymn of the Merseyside republic, You’ll Never Walk Alone, rang out around the stadium.
The whole production, the football and the love-in, was the Liverpool that many of us here in Scotland grew up watching. and admiring.
We loved our ‘own’ stars in the anfield firmament, of course. Dalglish and Souness more than any others.
But, beyond individual players, even those who didn’t align themselves with the teams built by Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and the whole boot-room battalion recognised the powerful forces at work.
The fact that Bill Shankly started it all, moreover, inspired a natural affinity among many north of the border.
and now the new generation have their heroes, including our own andy Robertson. Inspiring the same kind of defiant school-night devotion as ever.
Our Liverpool-daft ten-year-old was supposed to be listening to the Barca game on radio while tucked up in bed.
By full-time, his mum was calling him downstairs to witness the celebrations. He was still wide awake, of course, having bounced around his room for nigh on two hours solid; at the back of eleven, he was still too hyped to settle.
ah well, sleep is for folk who don’t love football. The fools.