16 2GG Monday June 29 2020 | the times
Somewhere in the 30 years between then and
now, the great tradition morphed from a torch
that lit the road ahead into a torch that could
only light the road behind. The beacon into the
future kept pointing towards the past.
It became an abiding theme of Liverpool’s lost
years, this disorientation caused by walking
forward while constantly looking over your
shoulder. The glorious history was a comfort
blanket that eventually became a ball and chain.
A similar syndrome has been unfolding at
Manchester United since Sir Alex Ferguson
vacated the throne seven years ago. It is human
nature, apparently, to seek refuge in nostalgia
when we are besieged by doubt and insecurity.
Jürgen Klopp referred to this tension between
past and present when speaking to Graeme
Souness live on television on Thursday night.
Liverpool’s 19th league title had just been
officially confirmed; the red swathe of the city
had been liberated for the first time since 1990;
the manager had brought deliverance. Souness,
their midfield emperor of bygone days, asked
Klopp how he’d done it. “Look,” he replied, “it’s a
mix of the history you created because that’s our... ” And here he had to pause to measure his
thoughts. “Obviously, the things we are
compared with, rightly so. I think we found a
good way to get a little bit rid of it because we
had to write our own story. But anyway, that
[tradition] gives us on the other [hand] a lot of
power.”
Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. For the
German’s predecessors, it had been a tension
they could not reconcile. But he managed to
walk the high wire and did so with tremendous
dexterity, discernment and emotional
intelligence. He has transformed the culture of
this venerable institution from top to bottom.
But is he a cultural architect or a cultural
archaeologist? It’s an academic question, not one
for a pub quiz. There is no definitive answer. The
general consensus is that Bill Shankly was
Liverpool’s first revolutionary figure, the alpha
pioneer, the architect of all that came afterwards.
And can any institution have more than one
cultural architect? Is everyone else who comes
after, no matter how great their legacy, somehow
derivative of the original?
In Barcelona they are still building the
cathedral of the Sagrada Família more than 130
years after it was started. Generations of brilliant
designers have toiled on its construction since.
But its ever-expanding magnificence is still
associated with Antoni Gaudí, its original
architectural visionary, although he died in 1926.
Bob Paisley succeeded Shankly and built so
much on to the existing monument it became
almost a new edifice. Then Kenny Dalglish added
his layers. Then came the 30-year drought. All
the previous greatness crowded in on top of the
ensuing mediocrity, making it look worse than
perhaps it actually was at times.
For the Klopp regime it must have been
awkward terrain to navigate. They had to be able
to breathe freely. The ghosts from that fabled
past had to be kept at bay, even though they were
hovering around every corridor. It was
imperative “to get a little bit rid of it” — and
maybe more than a little bit. And yet as he said
on Thursday, it also gave them “a lot of power”.
The magic of that power was manifest, to take
one shining example, in the Champions League
final of 2005. Without it, Liverpool would have
sunk beneath the waves that night in Istanbul. A
3-0 deficit at half-time against a glittering AC
Milan team should have been irretrievable.
Tradition threw them a lifeline. The club’s four
European Cups were ballast. Liverpool’s spiritual
leaders that night, the local boys Steven Gerrard
and Jamie Carragher, had been weaned on those
legends. So had their thousands of fans in the
stadium. A team and a fanbase without that kind
of heritage to call on would surely have
surrendered in a crisis of this magnitude.
In practical terms, it seemed to translate into
an utterly illogical entitlement; that they were
not beaten yet; that Liverpool could do it still
because they had the trophies back in Anfield to
prove it. Carragher and Gerrard were the living
embodiment that night of players connected
heart and soul to their history. In their case, it
translated into a pair of titanic performances.
They bent the game to their will. The drama ofthat match was borderline supernatural. As if
those same ghosts of greatness past had
materialised on the sideline and, in the words of
John Lennon, rattled their jewellery —
specifically, their medals.
This was the kind of power that Klopp was
talking about. The man himself evidently
possesses an enormous life force. He is no
shrinking violet. He was big enough for
Liverpool, for its mythology and its yearning. He
was much too confident to feel diminished by the
towering legacy that loomed all round him. If he
was all too aware of its capacity to oppress, he
understood that it could be harnessed too. In that
sense he was also a cultural archaeologist,
exploring the past not to admire its artefacts, but
to connect with it as a living, breathing energy
source for the here and now.
As in 2005, so could it be in 2020, a prime
driver of emotional energy, a heritage fuel
eternally renewable. Klopp hitched his wagon to
the past but discreetly left behind the baggage he
did not need.
He palpably loves being part of something
bigger than himself and so do his players. But to
honour the institution that they serve, they first
had to break free of the institutional
claustrophobia that might have suffocated them.
The manager learnt to balance that paradox
beautifully and in the end, positively skipped
across the last remaining stretch of tightrope like
he was dancing, like he really is the laughing
cavalier of major league management. He does
genuinely seem to have a ready appetite for fun.
Tellingly enough, though, there were tears as
well as laughter when his apotheosis arrived. A
man who had grinned his way through the
sundry emergencies of his job over the last
almost five years, found himself crying in his
hour of triumph. He had always put out the
sunny side, but this was much too happy a
moment for mere joy.Liverpool were burdened by history
but Klopp showed how to harness it
TOMMY
CONLON
Klopp found a way for his team to embrace Liverpool’s glorious past without being shackled by itLA LIGA
Real Madrid returned to the top of
the league last night thanks to a
routine 1-0 victory at the bottom club,
Espanyol.
The winning goal came on the brink
of half-time and was put into the net
by Casemiro after an audacious
backheel-cum-nutmeg from Karim
Benzema. Espanyol had sacked their
manager Abelardo Fernández on
Saturday, with the sporting director
Francisco Rufete taking charge until
the end of the season.
The result takes Real two points
above Barcelona with six games to
play. Barca suffered a potentially
crucial blow to their title hopes on
Saturday when a late goal from Iago
Aspas meant they dropped two points
in a 2-2 draw at Celta Vigo.
Luis Suárez twice put Barcelona
ahead but Aspas bent in a free kick
two minutes from time to earn the
home side a point. “The feeling is a
negative one,” Suárez, who scored for
the first time since January, said. “If
we want to stay in the title race and
have it in our hands we have to win all
our games.”
Juventus are set to sign Barça’s
Brazil international Arthur Melo after
the midfielder agreed a five-year
contract and passed a medical,
according to Spanish media reports
last night. The move is part of a twin
negotiation between the clubs which
involves Bosnia midfielder Miralem
Pjanic moving to the Nou Camp, with
Melo valued at £63.6 million and Pjanic
at £54.6 million.SERIE A
Two goals in the last six minutes were
enough to bring Inter Milan victory at
Parma. Gervinho had given the home
side the lead after 15 minutes but
goals from Stefan De Vrij (84 minutes)
and Alessandro Bastoni (87) conjured
a dramatic victory.
Their neighbours AC Milan also left
it late to beat Roma in the searing
heat of the San Siro. With
temperatures touching 32C the game
was a slow one but Ante Rebic broke
the deadlock with 14 minutes left.
Frank Kessié’s shot was saved, Rebic
struck the rebound against the post
but hit that rebound into the net.
Hakan Calhanoglu’s penalty with a
minute left sealed a 2-0 victory.
Substitute Luis Muriel rifled in two
long-range goals as Atalanta won 3-2
at Udinese for their third straight win
since restarting the Serie A campaign.
The league’s most prolific team took
their tally to 80 goals in 28 games,
including ten in three matches since
the resumption, to stay fourth and on
course for a Champions League spot.EREDIVISIE
Arjen Robben, the former Chelsea and
Bayern Munich winger, is returning to
play for his first club next season —
inspired by Michael Jordan’s
basketball comeback. Robben retired
a year ago after a trophy-laden career
that included spells at Chelsea, Real
Madrid and Bayern Munich. However,
he began his career at the Dutch club
Groningen and the club’s technical
director Mark-Jan Fledderus edited a
montage of clips from the Jordan
documentary The Last Dance along
with images of Robben’s own
glittering career to coax the
36-year-old back to play for the club.EUROPEAN ROUND-UP“Apologies for any inappropriate language you
might have heard there.” Television
commentators find themselves moonlighting
these days as the improbable guardians of our
delicate sensibilities. For viewers who prefer to
watch without the canned crowd noise, the
cursing can be heard with consummate clarity.
The favoured profanity among players remains
that old reliable, the traditional market leader in
Anglo-Saxon oaths. Obviously one doesn’t need
to spell it out here. However, the Premier
League is a veritable Babel of tongues
nowadays, so surely we can assume that swear
words are being uttered in all sorts of
indigenous argot. But there’s not a peep out of
those Mary Whitehouses of the microphone
whenever that happens. We are being assailed
by these cosmopolitan vulgarities and we don’t
even know it. We must insist forthwith on our
right to be offended in every language,
especially when we don’t realise we’re being
offended at all.Offensive players...
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER BRADLEY ORMESHERSuárez scored but Barça were held