Last time I wrote about my friend, the Bachata instructor who makes me laugh alot. Read about her if you missed it → The ‘Bougie’ Terrorizer of Bartende.
So in the earlier general soccer post earlier in the countdown, I hinted that there would be more soccer, so here we are: My beloved LFC aka Liverpool Football Club.
Liverpool is my favorite team who I started watching in 1989. Red team vs blue team FA Cup Final in 1989. It was the first match I watched in full, but that’s how arbitrary my choice of Liverpool was in the beginning. There’s a lot to be said about the team, it’s relationship with the city, and some of the tragedy that’s become part of the team’s psyche. I won’t get into all that though, I just simply want to share some personal thoughts on what it means to follow a soccer team, and also check in on where things are with the team today.
Liverpool are favored to be Manchester City’s closest challengers for the league this season. The Premier League is tough, I don’t know if they can do it, but I’ll believe they can and cheer and go wild and talk shit to other fans (like that insipid 2nd best team in Manchester that wears Red). What? Stop telling me it’s just a game, and to relax. Banter. Shit talk. We are fans, where is the fan if we can’t revel in rivalry? It’s supposed to be a laugh.
This is what futbol is all about, isn’t it? Nobody’s getting really carried away, but we’re allowed to enjoy watching our team play well.
The sport is supposed to be entertaining, that’s why we invest so much emotional energy into it. If we can’t sing and jump up and down and trash talk on WhatsApp chats right now — yes even early in a season, then we’re basically saying we can’t celebrate anything including goals until the end of the season, because if we don’t go on to win the European Cup or the league then there’s no point in it all. But what a pessimistic, joyless way to live. It’s about the journey and in sports terms, that means supporting your team right from the beginning when everyone is on an equal footing.
City fans probably don’t think we’ll win the league, Manchester United fans don’t want us to. Chelsea fans sure think Sarri has them playing better pressing, attacking football than Liverpool, and that they have the best player in the league (Eden Hazard). Who knows. Point is it’s all about hopes, and dreams, and there is still a chance, no? A chance to see Salah score a hat-trick on Sergio Ramos. A chance to give a warm welcome to the Brazilian Judas and his Barcelona teammates to the cauldron that’s Anfield on a European night. And this is why being a soccer fan is so great. The what if’s, and the expectations (or yes delusions) of grandeur.
If you are lucky enough to have supported a team that won something you’ll never forget what it feels like (rather than bandwagoned, which is fun, but a different, less intense experience). This is something DC hockey fans just experienced it with the Caps — for weeks, Chinatown was pure bedlam and a rapturous outpouring of unrestrained joy. I remember it with Liverpool in the mid-2000s, I experienced that night in Istanbul live on TV, when we came back from three goals down to beat AC Milan. I watched that Gerrard FA Cup goal. But I have never seen Liverpool win the league. There have been some painfully close finishes — 2009 when we had the best attack, the best defense, lost only two games, had the best attack, and the best goal difference, and smashed the league winners 4–1 on their field but still finished second. Or 2014 when we scored 100 goals, had two strikers with 20+ goals (one of them a beast mode Luis Suarez) and still didn’t win the league. But from this seasons I still remember Fernando Torres’s five finger salute reminding Manchester United where they stand in the hierarchy of iconic history. I still remember the ridiculous situation of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge taking the piss with about twenty goal-of-season contenders between the two of them.
See it’s about the excitement, about the journey. I’ve never experienced Liverpool winning the league, I’m still waiting for that moment of pure ecstasy when we win the European Cup again or the League for the first time in my adult life.
In Shawshank Redemption, there’s that famous scene where Morgan Freeman’s character says the hope can drive you insane. It’s a common saying, the idea that it’s the hope that kills you. I disagree, it’s the hope that gives you energy, that keeps you motivated. What’s being a futbol fan without hope?
I supported Liverpool through and through last season, to the bitter end, where Sergio “Thuglife” Ramos crushed our dreams. Imagine reaching that point in May, still missing out on a trophy, but runners-up in the European Cup nonetheless, and realizing I’d celebrated nothing? I say enjoy the ride. Otherwise no point being there in the end.
And there’s fewer better escapist thrills than supporting a team. Here’s a little bit about Liverpool:
We have most iconic club anthem in the sport — “You Will Never Walk Alone”…
We have best atmosphere…
“ I have never heard anything like it before and I don’t think I ever will again. I walked out into that cauldron and heard that singing and saw that passion. The hairs on my arms were standing up…probably the best atmosphere I’ve ever played in” — John Terry (Chelsea FC Legend)
We have best Brazilian…
We have global family…
We have most complete midfielder I’ve ever seen…
“Is he the best in the world? He might not get the attention of Lionel Messi and Ronaldo but yes, I think he just might be.” — Zinedine Zidane
“The fans, they look only for forwards, always a forward. Sometimes you have a player like Gerrard. For me, for the last five years Gerrard has been the best player in the world.” — Pele
We have best bromance…
We have coolest coach…
We never walk alone…
Street Art of the Day — Mo Salah (New York)
