So, the day finally came, a day many of us were waiting for with bated breath for almost the better part of three decades. But here we are, Liverpool are the newly coronated Premier League champions.
The more the Premier League title proved to be agonizingly out of reach, the more impossible the dream seemed to become. While it was a prize that was the same thing as before with a different name, it became an irritation.
If the Premier League was an itch, it was one that was situated right between the shoulder blades.
Roy Evans and Gerard Houllier held fleeting hopes of soothing that itch, while Rafa Benitez and Brendan Rodgers came so very close to doing so.
While Rafa Benitez and Brendan Rodgers would have done it had the wind been blowing in a marginally different direction, given that they didn’t, I think it had gotten to the point where nobody other than Jurgen Klopp could have generated the successes of the last 14 months, culminating in this, our first league title in three decades.
Yet here we have a potential springboard now that can not only bring other Klopp successes, but also for those that follow him into the job as Liverpool manager.A scene has been set for the decade ahead and there is a horizon in view that can be anything Klopp and Liverpool want it to be.
There is no bigger game in football today than Liverpool FC.
They have created a blueprint for others to imitate; they have become the benchmark for what can be achieved if you are a football club that isn’t blessed with the biggest cheque-book. Klopp has been shrewd and meticulous in not only the composition of his squad, but in his creation of a community that he has compelled to fight for a cause.
Klopp has invented ingredients that no cheque-book can buy and along with hard work, determination and sheer bloody-mindedness, he has delivered the league title. Petty tropes aside, what hurts rivals almost as much as seeing us lift the Premier League trophy is that we have done it on our own terms, in our own way.
For every angst-ridden rival, there is an unashamed admirer of what Klopp has done at Anfield. For instance, AC Milan have approached Liverpool for pointers in how they can break the Juventus stranglehold on Serie A.
Klopp’s brand of inspiration is infectious. Liverpool’s marketing department have run tirelessly with Klopp’s throwaway remark of turning “Doubters into Believers”, but I think there are other, more accurate descriptions that better explain what he has achieved at Anfield.
Trust is everything.
It took the supporters a lot to trust again, after they had bought so emphatically into Rodgers’ 2013/14 bandwagon. Many of us truly believed that that was going to be ‘the one’, only for failure to arguably prove more painful than it had in 2008/09.
After the League Cup final, Europa League final, Champions League final and 97-point Premier League losses, it took a certain sense of endurance to rise again and shake off each new disappointment.
“Mentality Monsters” is another tagline that has been attached to this Liverpool of ours. A line that is brutally apt for Klopp and his players’ psychological disposition, which also, handily, fits perfectly on a t-shirt and countless other types of merchandise. There will undoubtedly be much more to come. This Liverpool isn’t going to be like the Leeds United of 1992 or the Blackburn Rovers of 1995, or even the Leicester City of 2016, whereupon each occasion they climbed their respective mountains only to freewheel it back down the other side straight away.
We have a core of players who are the very best their positions can boast, and an aroma of evolution is in the air. When it comes to new arrivals or those who choose to go elsewhere, it is the brain more than the brawn that is the most important thing.Liverpool are a team of thinkers and dancers. Those who fall somewhere between the two need not apply.
The hope and faith were always there when it came to supporting our favorite club.
Now we believe though.