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We turn to the final curtain on Sunday as we bid a reluctant farewell to Jurgen Klopp after nine incredible years of football belligerence, defiance, effort, success, failure, joy and pain.
All possible emotions were known to mankind. There won’t be a dry eye in the house.
As much as it is a city of birth and inner heritage, Liverpool is an environmental sponge, a place that looks to the sea for its influences, a place that soaks up experiences and swallows those that come.
Some we throw up in disgust, but many more we hold close to our hearts, never to let them go completely.
I fully embrace the concept that as a city you can be of Liverpool without being from Liverpool, and you can even be of Liverpool without being Liverpool (I’m looking at you Esther McVey and your war with rainbow ribbons, and you Dorries with your general attitude).
You either get us or you don’t, and while we don’t care much for those souls who don’t understand us, we adore those who do.
Like a child at Christmas
From the story, Jurgen got us. Liverpool was a home from home for him and his family, an environment that offered an aura of community, in a big city, and he did much to improve that situation for nearly a decade.
But we have exhausted him and it is time for him to rest. Let’s be honest, we’re a bit full.
Just when we needed it most, Klopp arrived at Anfield to pick us up from the floor. For all his faults, Brendan Rodgers showed us a glimpse of the promised land of Premier League glory, only to see the door slammed in our faces again.
Rinse and repeat, Roy Evans, Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez and now Rodgers have all flirted with potentially ending the league’s title hunger that stretched back to 1990, but each fell short of the dream.
Trauma from the 2013/14 season. it was cut to the bone and Steven Gerrard’s debacle ending his Liverpool career in a whirlwind 6-1 defeat away to Stoke City was a depressing sign, a year after Luis Suarez engineered his move to Barcelona.
Jesus, we were in bad shape.
We tried Mario Balotelli and paid ridiculous money for Christian Benteke, and while we had pockets of talent here and there, we were generally rudderless and seemingly further from Premier League glory than ever before.
I know that as a middle-aged man I got to the point where I doubted that I would live to win the league again.
Then we had the night before Klopp. A Merseyside derby day draw at Goodison, a flash of breaking news, the touch of Thierry Henry’s right hand to Jamie Carragher’s left knee and an expression of contemplation from our former player that Inspector Poirot would be proud to call his own.
Before long, adults were eagerly looking at websites to track planned arrivals from Germany, in the style of Santa plotting the route with his children on Christmas Eve.
We were all too excited to sleep and most of the Reds were left hoping they would find a gift-wrapped Klopp waiting for them on the living room carpet when they got up. Half a glass of milk and an empty pie case left by the fireplace.
Jurgen caught us
It seemed utterly incredible that here he was, this purveyor of fine hipster football, a man who had left Borussia Dortmund less than five months earlier for a much-needed break.
But yes, here he really was, forced back into the circus earlier than expected simply because Liverpool popped the question.
Delightful but utterly bizarre, Liverpool were a pale shadow of their former selves, both on the pitch and in the stands.
A pick ‘n’ mix of cast-offs, various mismatches and scattered bright prospects, a fan base still nursing a broken heart, but here was Klopp, and he seemed genuinely pleased about it.
We were still in doubt though, a reset position for us beyond any unrequited courting of Premier League title aspirations.
Evans tried in 1996/97 and left before Christmas 1998, Houllier had a pop in 2001/02 and was out the door in May 2004, Benitez should have succeeded in 2008/09 and was sacked in the summer of 2010, then we had Rodgers, sacked less than 18 months after we came so close in 2013/14.
We didn’t deal well with the trauma of losing the Premier League title and created a self-inflicted cycle of self-destruction, going from promise, to hope, to anticipation, to disappointment, to despondency and finally rejecting the people who dared to make us dream. .
Klopp may have landed, but we weren’t ready to believe it yet. We were hurt too often, but little by little, he healed the wounds, and even the early cup final defeats under Klopp were chalked up as part of something infinitely bigger.
Two steps forward, one side and one back, we were football’s version of The Shadows, and as impressive as the wins at Chelsea and Man City were, it was Norwich away and that crazy 5-4 that set the scoreboard on fire.
A pair of broken glasses for the coach, limbs out of control in the away section, this was the way forward, this was the example we needed that was okay to believe in because even if we came up short, Jurgen clearly caught us and we him . It was chaos theory, and yet it was therapeutic.
We are blessed
Over the seasons that followed, the bond grew stronger, even through the bitter blow of losing the 2018 Champions League final in such farcical circumstances and being denied the 2018/19 Premier League title in even more obscene fashion.
Barcelona at Anfield happened, a night that no one will ever forget, and for those of us who were lucky enough to be there in person, the vibes will never leave us.
A night that pulsed, a night when the noise of Anfield set off alarms in the Stanley Park car park.
Divock and Gini, Mo’s shirt, Milner and Henderson’s reactions at the final whistle, I’ve lived many unreal days following this team of ours with the Liverbird on my chest, but I’ve never seen a night like it.
Soon we were European, domestic and world champions in the landscape when our biggest rivals were caught in the eye by dubious means.
Yes, we really should have done it all over again, but it wasn’t quite like that. Others may have won more pots during Klopp’s time with us, but nobody has enjoyed life as much as we have since October 2015.
We are blessed in a completely unique way.
Cheers, Jurgen. Don’t be a stranger.
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