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One: a change of pace and bumbling defending from the left opens up to a tame shot from the inside left channel. Keeper spills, and no one marks the simple run behind to tap it in. Two: a change of pace and bumbling defending from the left opens up to a fizzy shot from the inside left channel. Keeper got a hand to it, you'd expect better than a bulging net.
Three: Confidence now as the ball comes in from the right, landing onto a headed clearance destined for the heart of the six yard box. First bite of the apple begets the second, and wild celebrations juxtapose with hanging, or heated, or jersey-covered heads. Four: Wild attempts at control lead to a blind backpass, a poor touch, a pounce, and a left footed daisy cutter from inside right. Oh! The wonders of pressing a defender in possession!
Five: No more so a modicum of contention than can be expected from a feather in a hurricane. A stroll in the park, enough time to write a letter, and a curler from a loathsome foe to finish the half.
One: A final, lung busting farewell from the one of his kind. Six: A nail in a coffin long since sealed shut, driven home from the gangliest of former heroes. Still big, still mostly in red, feet still assuredly sticking out the bed. You know this one. Hard to forget.
The hazy, rose-colored tint of hindsight makes its easy to gloss over the importance of that six-goal embarrassment against Stoke City. Even easier now that Jürgen Norbert Klopp is the new black in our shade of Red. But that result, sports fans, is how we got to the tantric nirvana we find ourselves in today. That trampling under the boots of wretched, wretched Stoke in Stevie's final competitive English Premiership match. Things that make you spew for 6-1, Alex.
Some things just do not wash, and that was the beginning of the end for Brendan Rodgers. If you want to look at it as such. It could also be the beginning of the beginning for Jürgen Klopp.
Why does this matter so much? You do what you do to pay what you pay on the things that you owe so you can afford those precious moments in between. And what do we do with those moments? We agonize over a game. We argue. We cry. We annoy neighbors and excite pets with absurdly shrieked celebrations. We put off the lawn, and we put up our feet, and forsake an extended kip. Is that silver a metal so precious? Was all this evolution just honing a reaction to seeing a ball cross a line and hit a net? How do your eyes and back feel after a week and a half of Klopp Watch? Fowler, how does that inbox look?
The truth is we don't really remember the things we supposedly give a shit about as fans. What we remember are the shards and fragments and bits of success. The vestiges of winning. And, it turns out, the vestiges of losing. Its not the weeks upon weeks of gripes over squad selections and tactical rhythms you remember from the title tilt of 2013/14--its the smiles. Its the hugs, and laughter, and the almost knocking over of vases, and the trying to calm the baby's cries through your own tears of effervescent joy. Its pictures of knitted tributes beamed across the planet. That's the stuff, folks. That's the moment we're in now. That's why the next 24 hours matter.
Jürgen said it himself, there is no time for a full realization of an idea here. Not with three days to learn people's names before a trip to White Hart Lane. The details have to be fudged and the lines have to blurred. This isn't going to be gegenpressing, its not even guaranteed to be any kind of pressing. Certainly, it's not going to be a Jürgen Klopp football team. What it will be, however, is a visceral splinter that will stick for some years in the hearts of Reds, hopefully in the hearts of Spurs. Because Klopp is striking all of the chords so sweetly. He's embracing the fragmented emotions of this moment in his life, and in doing so he's reassuring us that love is all you need. Liverpool gonna Liverpool.
Wretched alarm, gotta change that tone. The second device cues up the overly familiar punditry team--just like any other weekend. A breakfast beverage of choice weighs familiarity into clumsy hands through this mug that only seems to find cleanliness on gameday--how does it always do that? What a crusty-eyed routine you got here. One you loathe and you love, but mostly you love. Only this time it crackles. This time it flips. It'll bubble and it'll tickle the roots of that preposterous bedhair. This is the dawning of the age of Klopptomaniacs and Klopptowomaniacs. So take your seat or hop all around. It's the mighty Reds walking Klopp into London town.
