Come in, come in, join me for Story Time before the most important soccer of the year kicks off…
In 2003, us eighth graders still enjoyed a little in-school, after-lunch recess. Basically, it was time for the teachers to let us blow off a little pubescent testosterone while they, I'm sure, prayed none of us would have the courage to climb up the side of the building or take our clothes off and run around the playground or something.
On this particular day, we were indoors, and we were allowed to play dodgeball, the most Roman of all recess games, where natural selection and our rotator cuffs were put on display in front of a few hundred classmates. Thinking back on it now, it's all a bit nutty...grown adults allowed us to hurl spheres at each other's faces at fairly close range. So yes, dodgeball days were the best days.
My best friend at the time was Derek - a stealthily athletic kid who was growing into his long legs and monkey arms. He was in the first period of recess, and I was in the second, so he played in the day's first games.
Derek and his teammates started at the back wall, opposite from the other team, and when the teacher blew the whistle to start the game, everyone sprinted to the center of the gym to get a hard-covered ball to throw at members of the other team. Derek was in the middle of the pack, got to his target, and bent down to grab one for himself.
Simultaneously, a dodgeballer from the other team was flying to the halfway line, having no interest in picking up a ball. The ornery eighth grader that he was, he wanted to kick one. So, he wound up and Zlatanned a red ball. Derek's fingers had been wrapped around that ball.
Witnesses say our eighth-grade John Arne Riise made great contact. Heavy contact. Really walloped it. The ball hit the back wall. Fingers...were everywhere.
Derek looked down, then ran - quickly but calm - to the teacher chaperone, who also saw what Derek saw. She quickly shuffled him down the hallway to the nurse’s office. There, after the shock and adrenaline wore off, Derek realized that having your fingers mangled is uncomfortable and distressing.
I heard this story near the end of the school day from a person who was there, but it all seemed too...I don't know...fantastical? I didn't really believe it. But, I was going over to his house later that day so I figured I'd find out the real story soon enough.
After school I called his family to see if it was OK that I come over to work on a project we were doing together, and his dad, a real dry humorist, picked up the phone. Here's how the conversation went:
Me: "Hey, it's Grant."
Him: "Hi Grant."
Me: "Is Derek home?"
Him: "No he's at the doctor getting lots of drugs."
Me: "Drugs? For what?"
He paused, exhaled hard, and in his best Clubber Lang Voice, he said:
"...Pain."
So yeah, that's how I felt every time I watched Liverpool play soccer this year.
The now closed season had its inevitable moments, but an equal and opposite reaction followed every good thing. And now, as they say, winter has arrived. We can finally and properly slot the 2013-14 team into history for what it was, a firebombing, overachieving machine, built as a cheetah instead of a Kenyan, and as Liverpool redefines its style, we won’t see that beautiful flare on Merseyside for quite a while.
Quickly, here’s a tired run through the players Liverpool has lost: Luis Suarez (thriving), Raheem Sterling (matter of time), Daniel Sturridge (serious, sad question: Can LFC count on him ever being healthy again?)
Now the worthy players they still have: Sturridge (maybe), Philippe Coutinho, Jordan Henderson, Emre Can, Jordon Ibe
Add in a likely James Milner signing and substandard New Balance jerseys - I could go ALL DAY on this, but you can’t call yourself a big club and have Warrior and New Balance as your recent kit-makers - and that represents a full-scale makeover. No longer will Anfield home matches resemble a wide game of offensive tic-tac-toe; this reinvention is a one-way flight to plugged up, physical soccer. That might be fine, but “fine” gets managers fired and players jettisoned when Liverpool and their fans appoint themselves top-four contenders each offseason. It’s hubris based on history and tradition instead of sustained excellence (for a counterpoint, see: Mourinho, Jose), and Brendan Rodgers is perhaps the best example of Red Exceptionalism.
If we’re all examining this rationally, Rodgers probably should be fired for this past season. I bet he’ll be gone after a lackluster start to next season, and by then the club will have wasted another chance to budge the wealthy Champions League spots.
The narrative for keeping Rodgers is the exhausted, “Well you can’t do much without Suarez and a healthy Sturridge…it’s unreasonable to expect anything more from a team that lost 51 goals.” That only makes sense if you take away every real decision Rodgers made this season.
- Sitting Philippe Coutinho for the better part of the first half of the season
- Never finding a permanent place for pacey, important Adam Lallana
- Buying Rickie Lambert, and then trying to play Rickie Lambert as a lone striker
- Taking 10 games to figure out that the lone striker thing wasn’t going to work
- Dealing for Dejan Lovren, one of the worst defensive center backs in the Premier League this past year
- Playing Steven Gerrard frequently - when the top-four and an FA Cup was still a possibility - for the sake of club nostalgia
Then there’s the viral move, when Rodgers took a chance on Mario Balotelli. I was actually OK with this one (high upside, low risk), but even though I’ll never understand the vitriol for him worldwide - more on this shortly - it turned out to be a bad move. Rodgers thought he could mend the beleaguered striker’s image and his game; he thought he could give Balotelli the second chance that few others would give him. Rodgers drank from Liverpool’s busted chalice.
Speaking of Balotelli: What’s the guy actually done wrong? A spin move in a crap friendly? Getting sent off in a big match? Being despised and disposed of by his coaches? You can’t convince me that anything he’s done warrants the criticism that he, a 24-year-old like me, gets from fans and media. It’s so mean-spirited and irrational that racism seems to be the only fitting word. Off the field, he makes the tabloids for ‘strange’ behavior, which only seems strange to old, white people who read tabloid magazines. But on the pitch another English domestic season has finished and Balotelli was only peripherally involved. Four goals in 26 games overall. One goal in the Premier League. John Terry, for example, has done far worse things off the field, but he’s a damn good player on it, so everyone forgets.
With Balotelli, it’s more difficult to toe the line. He trots onto the field, slowly, as if he doesn’t care. His detractors call him lazy, unwilling, and plenty of worse things. His supporters watch him like they do their own children. Every run he makes is the best run of the game. Each touch could be a goal. The goals, few and far between, are season-altering and validate the signing entirely. It’s a blinding spotlight to cast, but we do it anyway. We can’t help ourselves.
And you know what, if he doesn’t actually like soccer, which is sure what it looks like, it’s not his fault. I would understand completely if he didn’t enjoy the game anymore or if he maybe never did. Someone looked at his physical skills and handed him a contract. He makes about £6 million in wages per year. Can it be a con if the money bands had his name on it?
Back to Liverpool: The aesthetic signs existed late in the year after Steven Gerrard stamped Liverpool to the Europa League. The Reds’ attack was almost entirely Give The Ball To Coutinho About 20 Yards Away And Hope He Finds A Shooting Lane. Obviously that isn’t a sustainable strategy, and Rodgers will be tasked with finding a viable substitute with the players he has. Those players might make for quite a different Liverpool than the one from the near-champion squad of two years ago (RIP).
Ibe is raw but physical and gifted. Emre Can might move into holding midfield, where he’ll be able to use his rather large frame to his advantage in the defensive third. In the central midfield, Henderson has shown his willingness to scrap, and he’s become a fan favorite for it.
This combination might work, but it won’t have the potential to create bunches of goals unless Sturridge is healthy and/or Milner scores a career-high in goals. Those two scenarios are unlikely. Liverpool’s roster might turn the club pragmatic, which is not a style that Rodgers can play or likes to play. Also I should say that there doesn’t seem to be a plan in place to fix the back four, which has been less effective than a tall, flaming pile of iPads.
Stoke City just famously lit up Liverpool for five first-half goals in a game where the players looked as though they were trying to get Brendan Rodgers fired. Liverpool had finished second in the table only one year earlier. Travel back in time the same distance, just a year from the end of this season, and see that Stoke were easily the most mediocre, boring, unwatchable team in the Premier League. The Potters seemed to have plucked their squad from a local bar fight and raided the truckers union for midfielders.
But this year, even before that final-day shellacking, Stoke spent more time looking like beautiful Liverpool, and the Reds were mired in the mud, crawling bloodied to the finish line.
