A week in which the Anfield atmosphere willed Liverpool to two wins served as a reminder of the power of belief…
IT’S a week to reflect on what we actually want from our lives.
Have we stagnated in the confines of our own wants and needs?
Has history become burdensome, questionable or decontextualised?
Did a pandemic make us even more tribal, scared or generally unwilling to accept?
I am, of course, talking about… The atmosphere inside Anfield.
What is Anfield supposed to be and what is it trying to uphold?
This is the most important question to both explore and remember, because Anfield belongs to something else. Is made by something else.
Anfield is everything in its most present form.
It is the first half against Brighton.
It is the second half against Bayer Leverkusen.
Omnipresent is a sense of community. A sense of something-ness. A tangible link to anticipation, expectation or hope.
People are searching far and wide to find context for Anfield, meanwhile Arne Slot continues to quietly parade its corridors with assertion and nous – defying and exceeding expectation.
More presidential than any of these pretenders.
The players are largely the same. Andy Robertson still sprints towards The Kop pre-game. Virgil van Dijk’s leap still defies gravity. Mohamed Salah still reminds you that he’s one of the best to ever grace it.
Within Anfield there are stories, journeys, needs, desires and structures. You can be a season ticket holder or hospitality guest, a young man or woman. A parent or grandparent.
You might be relatively uninvested or it could be the single most important time of your week.
We’re lucky to have belief. We’ve seen only snippets of how the information and opinion space can be hoisted with its own petard when things go badly.
To that end, Anfield is and remains unequivocally Liverpool. It can excuse, but has standards which need upholding. Nobody works harder than us. Nobody takes the piss.
The beauty and humility of Anfield is this: what you put in is what you (generally) get out.
We’re in the midst of three home games. Two already sprinkled in victory.
Brighton was only the second match I’ve been to this season.
My own axis was slightly off. A big crowd, the unfamiliar sight of someone other than Dave, the fella usually next to me. It had been a while and I had to get back to Lime Street straight after. It all threw me.
I wasn’t myself first half. Liverpool weren’t themselves. Second half, Anfield demanded me and I demanded it.
And then a cajoling. A collective push and pull combined with wonderful football which would be repeated on Tuesday. A certainty of our role being set, an understanding we’re there when they need us. Whoever we are.
The world is currently overwhelmed. There is so much battleground for identity and the sense of something that never was. But people have been making Anfield atmospheres a conversation since my childhood due to its legend and myth.
Modernisation has taken hold of a once meandering structure and ensured it looks and feels relevant. Liverpool have a team steeped in such relevance, embedding the type of belief the stadium needs to catch fire.
When it does, it’s a drunken and heady mist. There’s nothing and nowhere like it. It’s a shared belief.
Because Anfield is Liverpool. It is objectively true when in front of your eyes and ears and can’t be conspiratorially disputed.
Xabi Alonso became Liverpool when here. He lived in Albert Dock, embraced values and wowed a famous stadium. He undoubtedly felt Liverpool and Anfield again this week.
To feel something is important. To understand that a club and stadium and 90 minutes of football represents a concept of place remains an artistic expression. A cultural phenomenon.
Under Slot, Liverpool’s belief system is strengthening by the week. It feels serious and assertive and full of world-class footballers from around the globe.
Aston Villa tomorrow. I’ll be there hopefully more relaxed, involved, in awe. Another chance to learn something about them, about ourselves. About a place which is everything in its most present form. You get out what you put in.
In search of truth in this incendiary time, Anfield still only has one.
Tomorrow means so many different stories coming together to feel a sense of Liverpool. Be quick, funny, welcoming, visceral and you’ll fit right in. Don’t take the piss.
I don’t know what exactly I’m driving at in this piece. I suppose it’s this week, more than any other, I am glad to be home. Glad to be part of something pure and undisputed.
Glad to believe in the best version of us.
Buy Dan Morgan’s book ‘Jürgen Said To Me’ on Klopp, Liverpool and the remaking of a city…
