A couple of years ago I fell in love with Liverpool. It wasn’t because of Klopp, not Salah, not the chants of The Kop. It was because of a song that says: You’ll Never Walk Alone. Ever since I started following that team from that small post-industrial town on the shores of Merseyside, I knew that the best song ever written was not by The Beatles, but by Gerry and the Pacemakers. A song that united more than 50,000 people every Sunday so that thousands of English with a strange accent called scouse they will sing that together they would never walk alone.
Thousands of kilometers away I picked up and used that song as a shield against the blows that life gave me. I adopted it as a war chant that would keep me walking through the storm and remind me that I would never walk alone. The Liverpool and his fans never did every game they played at home and neither did I. However, that fateful March came a pandemic that turned the world around and, for the first time, Anfield was absolutely empty.
After all that, with a league on track and Michael Robinson watching from the sky, Henderson raised the cup and Liverpool won their first Premier League without their audience. This season everything remained the same as that month of June: with empty stadiums and full ICUs. Liverpool was leading with the league on the right track. But first it was Van Dijk, then Diogo JotaIn defense they ended up playing midfielders, and in attack there was no longer the goal as before. The new strain of the virus began to become contagious and at Anfield the “Robin Hood” syndrome developed, losing against small teams and winning against big teams. The points that others won began to lose, the leadership slipped through the fingers, leaving a last bullet that allowed one last chance to fight for that beloved title.
With the garter on the table Klopp made use of that opportunity against Guardiola, in a rough game where the two played their cards and the Catalan had poker and the German only had a high card. 1-4 and everything for the server in the blue suit and looks like a chess strategist. Checkmate my friend. Thus the most anticipated duel of the Premier, with a historical humiliation and a feeling of helplessness and despair of each and every one of the members of the most successful English team on the continent.
Sitting on the sofa in my house, I also watched with disbelief what was happening. I knew this Liverpool It was not the same as always, but I did not know that the opportunity to fight for this league would end like this: with the storm taking eleven lonely reds that more than ever they felt alone and without anyone by their side.
There are teams that play better at home because of their audience, and Liverpool is one of them. Weighed down by injuries and an empty stadium, this is what happens when you walk alone through the storm. Bye Bye Premier.
