“Football! Damn…” (Alex Ferguson)
A month ago a columnist wrote about Liverpool and their manager Jürgen Klopp in terms of the fall of the Roman empire. He said that the reds had lost motivation and that new suitors, with more energy and desire, would take their place.
“After conceding three goals in each of their last three games, the last loss on Saturday 3-0 against a team in the relegation zone, Wolves, Klopp’s men are in free fall,” the columnist explained. “Barça believes that they have suffered in the last two or three seasons. No, this is suffering. And with no redemption in sight.
Who was the know-it-all who came up with this withering prognosis? I. If I. Here, in this space, a month ago. And what happened on Sunday? They beat Manchester United 7-0. Redemption or what? Luckily I didn’t post anything on the eve of the game. I would have written what I told a friend a few hours before United’s heaviest defeat since 1931.
That the new United manager, the Dutchman Erik ten Hag, had wrought a miracle. That after a dying decade the team with the most followers in the Premier League had staged the most unimaginable resurrection since the time of Lazarus. That Ten Hag had restored the lost confidence of striker Marcus Rashford, who suddenly did not stop scoring. That the signings of Brazilian Casemiro from Real Madrid and Argentine Lisando Martínez from Ajax had turned United’s defense into a rock. That Liverpool was a flan and that the best he could hope for in the English classic was to avoid a win.
What happened next was a shower of humiliation for United and a shower of humiliation (with fewer witnesses, thankfully) for me. The consolation, I want to think, is that I was not alone. The entirety of English professional opinion-makers had spent the week praising the virtues of Ten Hag. Detailed analyzes explained how the combination of the Dutchman’s mettle and Casemiro’s maturity had transformed a team that had been a rabble into a disciplined, supportive, indomitable, fighting team. Examples were given the previous week’s victory in the League Cup final and Barcelona’s defeat in the Europa League, more resounding than the narrow margin of victory indicated.
Let’s see if United was going to finish the season above the “noisy neighbor”, Manchester City, many said. Let’s see even if he surpasses the leader Arsenal and wins the league, said the most reputable “expert” on English television, former United player Gary Neville. Well, suddenly Arsenal are 14 points behind United. Today I am the one who has lost confidence but I take a deep breath, I am filled with courage and I dare to declare that no, they will not reach them.
I can be wrong again, of course, because I am relying on the same logic that says that a seven-nil defeat against Liverpool is more unlikely than a meteorite, or a nuclear war, to destroy the Earth. Let’s see: a couple of weeks ago Real Madrid annihilated Liverpool and United beat Barça; Barça has just beaten Real Madrid, over whom they have a nine-point advantage in the League. Do the calculation. It would have been a perversion of the laws of science to think that Liverpool would beat United, inconceivable that they would do so by seven to zero.
Does anyone remember any crazier result in the history of football? Perhaps the 7-1 victory of Germany against Brazil in the 2014 World Cup, or that of North Korea against Italy in 1966, or that of the United States against England in 1950.
I start to comfort myself a little more. Implosions like United’s occur almost as infrequently as Halley’s Comet passes through Earth. In my glowing column from a month ago I quoted a depressed Klopp as saying there was no explaining the dismal run afflicting his team. Nor could the glorious massacre of two days ago have been explained. But I’ve learned my lesson, I think. Prophecies in football, never again, and less in writing. Bets neither. That’s for crazy people, like the Liverpool fan who invested a pound in Sunday’s result and went home with a thousand.