I've been a Liverpool fan for some time and a committed fan since Michael Owen debuted with the team. Listening to Pink Floyd's Meddle as a kid, I always wondered about the hauntingly mesmerizing singing at the end of Fearless. When I found out that it was the audience at a Liverpool match in Anfield, I started following the club. And why not follow a club whose motto is "You'll never walk alone?"
Ian Rush, John Barnes, Robbie Fowler - great players I started to cherish - and then Michael Owen burst onto the scene. I was hooked. He had some of the greatest goals - sprinting at full speed, catching the ball on his left foot, and then knocking it into the netting with his right - just sheer genius.
I was wild about Owen's play. Anytime he was on the pitch, a goal could happen within seconds. In my mind, Owen scored in almost every other match. Silly as it may sound, I advocated naming our first son Owen, which we did; my wife happened to really like the name. I kept my motives somewhat secret until he was born and I saw Owen on the birth certificate. It's a good name and I owned several jerseys with the name on it already. People now thought I wore a Liverpool jersey with my son's name on it - "Isn't that cute."
These were good days.
Every football fan knows about the history that hooliganism has played in English football. And every fan knows about the bad reputation Liverpool fans have been tagged with. They've been blamed for the Heysel disaster, which is disputable, and then were blamed for years for the tragedy of Hillsborough. They've been vindicated for the Hillsborough tragedy, well documented in Phil Scraton's horrifying retelling, but Liverpool hooliganism is stuff of legend; we wish that's where it would stay, but now hooliganism has reared its ugly head once again.
Visiting Barcelona ahead of the Champions League tie, Reds fans ruined the Placa Reial clogging the walkways with trash and then dumping bystanders into the fountain.
In videos, several Reds supporters can be seen pushing and plopping people right into the fountain. Then they're laughing and carrying on with bigoted remarks.
It's quite a nasty scene. The club admonished the fans.
But all of us fans around the world were left thinking: hooliganism makes it hard to wear the jersey proudly even with Owen on the back.
It makes it hard to keep rooting for Liverpool and when they fell to Barcelona after two goals from the brazen Lionel Messi, including a free kick as good as any you'll ever see, it almost felt justified.
It certainly is hard to root for a side supported by fans who behave as poorly as they did in Barcelona.
This was a disastrous defeat and a disgraceful show from visiting fans. Liverpool fans. Gross.
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And then the home leg. No news of hooliganism; thank god. No Salah. No Firmino. And early in the second half, no Robertson. No chance. Trailing 0-3 in aggregate, the Reds would need to score 4 goals to advance without conceding a single goal to Messi, Saurez and co.
While I worked, my brother in South Africa watched as I listened to the UEFA provided radio commentary.
Football/soccer is fantastic to listen to on a radio broadcast, by the way. It feels like radio was created for football broadcast. There are a few sports like that: baseball, hockey (believe it or not). Basketball and NFL don't work well on radio. But football/soccer works - it just feels right.
My brother and I chatted on WhatsApp as the drama unfolded. Initially we gave Liverpool slim to no chance of drawing (like nearly everyone) - they'd have to score 3 goals without conceding 1 - without their most prolific scorer, Salah, and without the creative play-making of Firmino. Not a very likely scenario.
Then they scored 7 minutes into the game. What probably should have been a Henderson goal, bowled gracefully into the path and onto the foot of a grateful and clutch Origi. 1-0.
When the whistle blew, I asked my brother his impressions of the first half. "Liverpool has been outplaying Barca." And that effort paid off shortly after the break.
About 8 minutes into the second half, Wijnaldum's beautiful running blast made it 2-0, 2-3 on aggregate, one more would force extra-time. Two minutes later the tie was unbelievably tied; Wijnaldum suddenly grew 6 inches and got a head on a lovely cross; he'd scored again, 3-0, 3-3 on aggregate. And suddenly there was a real possibility of victory. Anfield knew what was possible now. My radio trembled with the roaring cheers.
"Barca look like sh!t," my brother observed. And it wasn't long before the pandemonium burst through the airwaves like an F5 tornado. Origi scored with a little trickery from Alexander-Arnold and it was just what was needed 4-0. Barcelona threatened but even the legend of Messi couldn't conjure up a goal. The memories of Roma surely filled the heads of the Barcelona fans. "You'll never walk alone" echoed through Anfield - the radio broadcast carried every note across the globe.
What a result - what a week. From sheer disappointment and utter disgust at what transpired in Barcelona to absolute joy. Liverpool improbably would play in another Champions League final.
And two brothers followed the action on opposite sides of the world.
This is the sheer power of sport. Whether you are a fan or not, sports have the ability to cross geographical, political, and economic divides. It can create indelible scenes of disgust and enduring scenes of grown men crying with pure joy. Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart. And you'll never walk alone. You'll never walk alone. You'll never walk alone. Liiiiiverpooool!
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