https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...liant-culmination-of-klopps-inclusive-project
Liverpool’s win is culmination of Klopp’s inclusive project
In the end it seemed fitting that Liverpool should win this Champions League final through an effort of shared will. This was a night when the gears refused to click, the circuits rarely sparked, and when taking that last step was always likely to be matter of spirit and bloody-minded certainty.
But this has been coming; just as sometimes sport really does seem to be trying to tell you something. There had been talk before this game that Liverpool had to win here, that failure would have been a fatal dent in the regeneration of the club. This was never really true. By any metric just being present two years in a row was a sublime achievement for the players, the management, the owners, the – God help us – brand.
Plus of course the story follows its own arc. It is easy to forget that Klopp’s first game in England was against these opponents, a 0-0 draw at White Hart Lane marked by a series of slightly wild collisions as that game of counter-press found a ragged first expression. This was a bookend: same teams, different stage, different energy, different scale.
There is a kind of “third-way” football capitalism in all this. Liverpool under Klopp has been a pointedly inclusive project, geared to connect with something other than simply success on the pitch. Those hedge fund owners have invested brilliantly - not just in themselves or in the team (heavily) but in the ground and its surrounds, in understanding the importance of that connection. Alexander-Arnold embodies this. Aged 20 a sporting life won’t, can’t get much better.
Another thing that makes a champion team: champion players. If this game really did have to be pointed one way by a moment of chance 22 seconds in, it was probably right that the man stepping up to benefit should be Mohamed Salah.
What was Moussa Sissoko pointing at? Deep in the right hand of side of his penalty area, faced by Sadio Mané, who had stopped and was looking around for a pass, Sissoko raised his right arm like a boxing padman offering a target to hit. Mané obliged.
Salah waited four times longer than the game had already run for the air to settle. His first touch was to spank the penalty kick hard and straight down the middle. After that Salah was poor here. There was a buzz when he took the ball. But he looked undercooked and cobwebbed. It is a part of Salah’s charm that he has these moments when he looks suddenly like someone playing with the dog in the garden, or having a morning kick-about on the beach.
Which is quite a quality in a player who really should be winning the Ballon d’Or from here. It an early call, although not that early given the rhythm of the season, but Salah is surely the front-runner now. The top scorer for the champions of Europe. Twenty-nine goals this season. The supreme cutting edge in this team. And also a thrilling, uplifting presence, all ferreting imagination, unusual angles, carefree moments in the middle of all that hustle.
It is a beautiful accomplishment; and a lesson in building that is, even now, likely to run and run.
Liverpool’s win is culmination of Klopp’s inclusive project
In the end it seemed fitting that Liverpool should win this Champions League final through an effort of shared will. This was a night when the gears refused to click, the circuits rarely sparked, and when taking that last step was always likely to be matter of spirit and bloody-minded certainty.
But this has been coming; just as sometimes sport really does seem to be trying to tell you something. There had been talk before this game that Liverpool had to win here, that failure would have been a fatal dent in the regeneration of the club. This was never really true. By any metric just being present two years in a row was a sublime achievement for the players, the management, the owners, the – God help us – brand.
Plus of course the story follows its own arc. It is easy to forget that Klopp’s first game in England was against these opponents, a 0-0 draw at White Hart Lane marked by a series of slightly wild collisions as that game of counter-press found a ragged first expression. This was a bookend: same teams, different stage, different energy, different scale.
There is a kind of “third-way” football capitalism in all this. Liverpool under Klopp has been a pointedly inclusive project, geared to connect with something other than simply success on the pitch. Those hedge fund owners have invested brilliantly - not just in themselves or in the team (heavily) but in the ground and its surrounds, in understanding the importance of that connection. Alexander-Arnold embodies this. Aged 20 a sporting life won’t, can’t get much better.
Another thing that makes a champion team: champion players. If this game really did have to be pointed one way by a moment of chance 22 seconds in, it was probably right that the man stepping up to benefit should be Mohamed Salah.
What was Moussa Sissoko pointing at? Deep in the right hand of side of his penalty area, faced by Sadio Mané, who had stopped and was looking around for a pass, Sissoko raised his right arm like a boxing padman offering a target to hit. Mané obliged.
Salah waited four times longer than the game had already run for the air to settle. His first touch was to spank the penalty kick hard and straight down the middle. After that Salah was poor here. There was a buzz when he took the ball. But he looked undercooked and cobwebbed. It is a part of Salah’s charm that he has these moments when he looks suddenly like someone playing with the dog in the garden, or having a morning kick-about on the beach.
Which is quite a quality in a player who really should be winning the Ballon d’Or from here. It an early call, although not that early given the rhythm of the season, but Salah is surely the front-runner now. The top scorer for the champions of Europe. Twenty-nine goals this season. The supreme cutting edge in this team. And also a thrilling, uplifting presence, all ferreting imagination, unusual angles, carefree moments in the middle of all that hustle.
It is a beautiful accomplishment; and a lesson in building that is, even now, likely to run and run.
