https://twitter.com/dan_sheldon_/status/1762182235354980393?s=46
As I’ve said Liverpool and Klopp have been the main driver of interest in the league over the last several years, since Leicester won the league anyway. But Liverpool have nearly always been the main driver of interest anyway because whatever is happening at Liverpool is always interesting.
The narrative that has driven the interest since 2018 is whether the humans of Liverpool can beat the cyborgs of Abu Dhabi.
Liverpool are a club apart. It’s always about Liverpool, even in their “off” seasons. To a lesser extent it’s about Manchester United, Tottenham, Aston Villa, Leeds, Everton, Nottingham Forest, Luton. It’s about Chelsea and the Saudis when they’re failing, not if they’re winning. It’ll be about Abu Dhabi when they start to fail after Guardiola leaves. I agree with @Bandage that there’s something about current Arsenal that feels sterile.
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The entire club game is sterile. Theres a huge drop off in interest in the premier league from what I can see. Fact rural pubs can’t show it anymore is huge.
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Liverpool and to an extent Manchester United are box office teams not just because of their mass fanbases but because they aren’t sterile entities in the mould of Abu Dhabi/Chelsea/the Saudis.
Liverpool have been the most exciting team to follow in world football since Klopp came in. Extreme highs and extreme brilliance mixed with agonisingly falling short, and shambolic collapses. Manchester United have been a club of total chaos, hapless administration and endless entertainment.
People want brilliance to be human, flawed, vulnerable and tragic. That’s why Liverpool captivate, Ronnie O’Sullivan still captivates and why Abu Dhabi don’t.
A giant failing in a bizarre or shambolic ways and not learning from mistakes is always entertaining. That’s why Manchester United are entertaining, why watching the Dallas Cowboys fail is entertaining and why Liverpool were always entertaining pre-Klopp.
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Excellent synopsis of where pro rubby lost track of its roots.
Its like when a fella gives himself a nickname rather than it coming naturally
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Paul The Guv’nor Ince
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Ah FFS man united are miles more ‘box office’ than Liverpool. They are a complete shit show but it’s a far bigger deal than when Liverpool were in a similar state. The club is the definition of box office for better or worse.
That’s exactly when it started for real. The Champions League quarter-final that April was the high point. Like with so many of the great Liverpool victories, it felt like something metaphysical was happening that night at Anfield. Like when Chelsea were vanquished in 2005 and 2007, it felt like a washed up Rocky knocking out the young flash harry Tommy Gunn, or Dan Ashcroft having his comeuppance on Nathan Barley.
Old men yell at clouds and reckon everything was better in the old days
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Even young lads dont care anymore.
I remember being completely devastated when Porto got that last minute goal to knock Manchester United out of the Champions League in 2004.
Ireland drawing with Switzerland in 2005 too was heartbreaking.
Coming out of Croke Park crying when Tipp lost as “May we never have to say Goodbye” rang out on the tannoy.
The kids today don’t give a fuck.
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Manchester United’s failures are probably more box office because they have much bigger advantages than Liverpool did.
Manchester United’s success was to a large degree a result of them monetising themselves earlier and to a much greater extent in the early 90s than their rivals. Liverpool’s period of dominance from 1973-1990 was a result of doing things better rather than monetary. Liverpool made one bad appointment with Souness but also fell behind rapidly in monetary terms.
Manchester United retained the monetary advantages they had over others after Ferguson left and were in a very good place in 2013 to continue to dominate. The box office nature of the collapse is in the incompetence compared to the advantages they have. Liverpool while incompetent for a long time at admin level probably never displayed quite the same degree of haplessness.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a loss be more gleefully celebrated and for such a long time by others however than the Gerrard slip game in 2014. It’s probably become the most seminal game in post-1992 English football given the nature and context of what happened. That proves the unrivalled box office nature of Liverpool F.C.
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Ah brooden is 100pc right. Liverpool are massive but nobody gives a fiddler’s poo poo about man city. The fact that the vast majority of man utd and possibly other fans would rather see them win 4 in a row than Liverpool win again says it all.
@BruidheanChaorthainn @Cheasty
Give us a synopsis of your top 5 most devastating days as Sports fans. Total heartbreak like when it really meant something.
Mine would probably be:
- 2017 World Qualifier Second Leg - ROI v Denmark
- 2013 All Ireland Hurling Championship Phase 1 Qualifier Tipp v Kilkenny.
- 2009 All Ireland Hurling Final Tipp v Kilkenny
- 2005 World Cup Qualifier- ROI v Switzerland
- 2004 Champions League Last 16 Second Leg - Manchester United v Porto
Most people don’t give a fuck about Abu Dhabi because they’re faceless. It’s Liverpool who make the game entirely. Face v faceless, human v cyborg becomes box office.
Abu Dhabi and Arsenal were in a title battle for a while last year but it felt sterile because current Arsenal aren’t very interesting. The reason Arsenal aren’t very interesting was probably summed up by Martin Odegaard celebrating with that photographer after beating Liverpool a few weeks ago. Odegaard doesn’t seem a particularly detestable character, he just seems boring, dull and social media orientated. Sterile. Arsenal have a lot of players like that. A battle of two sterile teams cannot be interesting. Chelsea in the Mourinho era were at least active cunts.
Increasingly in top level sport, the battle for titles is between the faceless, the boring. Liverpool disturb that. It’s also why Hibs beating Rangers in the 2016 Scottish Cup final was so exhilarating, or Argentina winning the World Cup. Or even why South Africa winning the Rugby World Cup didn’t seem as detestable as previous versions, because unusually for South Africa, this team and management seemed to have a bit of personality about it.
I would have to agree Man City v Man Utd doesn’t feel like a big game anymore given the decline of Man Utd but Man City v Liverpool is a massive game.
- Jimmy White missing the black off its spot in the final frame against Stephen Hendry in 1994.
- The Gerrard slip.
- Dublin v Meath 1991.
- Ireland failing to qualify for Euro '92.
- Liverpool v Arsenal 1989.
I suppose the Henry handball but mainly because it cheated me of what would probably have been the biggest celebration night of all time.
Mayo losing that final to Tyrone annoyed me a lot.
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How could i forget the Henry handball?
Jesus school the next day was horrific. And the GAA still take the piss with that God damn awful Black Eyed Peas song.
Sonia when she was done out of it by those doped up, turtle blood drinking Chinese that time.
Sonia stopped the country when she was at the peak of her powers.
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I was at that game and the mood in the stadium was resigned from the first whistle. There was no belief at all. The Irish football public had (correctly) gotten it into their heads after the Israel games that the team was at nothing and would do nothing. The mood at the end was not one of heartbreak but of almost disinterested recrimination. I walked back into town and had one can on the steps of the Pav on my own and then went on my way home. There had been a very tangible “break” in the relationship between the Irish team and the Irish public. That break had not been there at all in 2001, there was an understanding that while playing more gifted opponents, that that team were giving everything and the support was unconditional.
The mood in the country two years previously when Ireland lost to Switzerland in Basel was similar. 2003 was the first time in my memory when a sarky recrimination rather than intense disappointment was the overriding feeling after a failure to qualify. 2009 was the only time since then that sarky recrimination was not the overriding feeling after a failure to qualify.
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- All Ireland Final 2008
- Munster Final 1982
- All Ireland Final 2017
- Munster Final 2011
- Munster Final 2016
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