the health situation we are in with the coronavirus
means we all have to stay safe and follow the
guidelines.
“It’s hard, but that’s how it is. It is difficult to
change because we are talking about the health of
people, but it doesn’t detract from what we have
accomplished this season.
“If you look at the whole season, the things we
had to overcome to get into the situation we are in
as champions is a lot. We train and play at 100 per
cent, but we had to go to Qatar, win the Club World
Cup and then come back and perform at a time in
the season when we have a lot of games. That was
really tough.
“Overcoming things like that makes it so beautiful
because we had an answer to every problem that
we had. That says something about this team, about
how strong this team is.
“It makes it not as beautiful to win the league
when you can’t celebrate it with the supporters, but
everyone wants to celebrate it with them when we
can, especially with what we saw after we won the
Champions League.
“The scenes that happened in the
city, the love the fans gave to us and
the appreciation from them to us was
unbelievable. Of course we want
that feeling again,
and we realise
this can be much
bigger because
the Liverpool fans
were waiting so
long for this title. But
we must all wait.”
Mention of that wait for the Redmen
to be champions again has been the
backdrop of seemingly every season
since the Premier League was formed
in 1992/93. At the end of that first
campaign the gap was three
years, but had Liverpoolnot finished top of the pile in 2019/20 the most
successful club in England would not have been
league champions for 30 years. Surely that heaped
added pressure on the players with such an
ominous milestone looming?
“No, not really, because of the team we have,”
responds Wijnaldum. “I know the players we
have, I know the quality we have and I have a lot
of confidence in the team. I trust the team, I trust
the medical staff, I trust the technical staff and the
people that work at the club at Melwood. We knew
that we had a really big chance to succeed in what
we wanted to.”
Wijnaldum’s confidence wasn’t misplaced.
Liverpool aren’t reigning Premier League,
Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA
Club World Cup champions by accident, but the
coronavirus outbreak meant
that the season was
suspended for two-and-
a-half months.
During that time
France and Scotland
both ended their leagues
and declared Paris St
Germain and Celtic respectively as
champions. But in Wijnaldum’s“WE WANT TO WIN ALL THE REST OF
OUR MATCHES. IT’S GOING TO BE DIFFICULT
BECAUSE WE ARE PLAYING AGAINST
REALLY GOOD OPPONENTS, BUT
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE”
18