A Long And Winding Road To Number 20… | OneFootball

By Jon Reid

So much of greatness is preparing for it.

If you’re reading this and you’ve got kids, you’re married, you’ve given a wedding speech or eulogy, you know this.  We talk about greatness, but we don’t often discuss what it is, what it feels like. The truth is, lots of us don’t know, so much of it is a blur. The wedding rehearsal, the joy of birth or the grief of death – so often your mind is elsewhere & only on the doing great, that you don’t focus on the being great.

You know those speeches by hand, the words by rote. You can touch each of those memories, but none of us really remembers being great. The day itself is a blur. You’re preparing for greatness, but you’re not really living it. The greatness was something that happened out there, away from you. It’s something to do – something you have to do in most cases – but none of it really sticks. It’s something to do & you revel in it, but it goes as you planned & lands in your lap. 

You don’t really notice it at the time, you live it in hindsight. A lifetime to revel in the memories of a good or important day. It happened around you rather than to you. You put the work in beforehand, and slowly, over time, this thing is revealed to you, like some great monument or giant Art Attack that only comes into focus the further away from it you get. 

Greatness can be too much for the senses, usually. Too many things for your conscious mind to process at once. Often, you don’t even notice it – greatness can creep up on you that way. Until, suddenly, gloriously, it all clicks & the shape of greatness is revealed.

You understand how each piece was vital to making the whole, how each small part became something bigger, gave some steer towards the final destination, the terminus. With time, you move past the big and even begin to remember gloriously small moments, each rich with their own greatness that you neglected at the time.

I’m chatting bollocks obviously – I don’t have kids. But I’ve been fortunate to have plenty of brushes with greatness in 32 years, not least through the gift that is Liverpool Football Club. It’s true that greatness takes many forms – it’s equally shocking & revealing how many of them seem to involve having a Liver Bird on the chest. I say all this to say that yesterday escapes words, so much of what it means and what it represents is ephemeral. Its meaning will only be revealed in time.

Like many, I’ve never lived through Liverpool winning a league title in the flesh. So much of what to do yesterday felt alien. Not the celebrations – we’re practised at those – but what it means to be a champion. It’s hard to know how to react to greatness when it is thrust into your lap. And that seemed to be the common consensus from most people I spoke to on it. Every variation on ‘I’m lost for words’ or ‘this feels surreal’ all in their own way saying, “I know I’m witnessing greatness, but it all feels over there somehow”. What does greatness look like? How do I feel about it? I know how to do greatness. What does it mean to be great? And then it happens & the answer is obvious: you’ve been preparing for this your whole life.

For many, it came early with Mac Allister’s strike; for me, it came at the full-time whistle when it was finally done. I expected songs, I expected shouting; I didn’t expect the well of joy that seemed to burble up through my chest & out my eyes like a rising tide. You can’t expect more than a moment from perfection. But greatness is so much more than that, greatness is reaching the top of the mountain after a long climb. Greatness is everything you did along the way, and you’ve been preparing for it your whole life. You can’t expect more than a moment from perfection, and that’s why greatness is better, because it feels like this.

Suddenly, all of it makes sense: You suffer through the 1990s, but you come back. You suffer through near bankruptcy, but you come back. You suffer through Basel to get to Kyiv to get to Madrid. You get Liverpool top of the pile, but you don’t get it, you don’t get this feeling. It’s somewhere over there, going on without you. Even before the kickoff yesterday, you get a sense of the irony of us finally doing this thing, but without Jurgen Klopp in the building. Of all the people, he should be in there, surely? Why this year and not last year, when it would make sense? Wouldn’t that be poetry? But greatness doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t do words – only feelings. It has no time for poetry, only preparation. And you recognise it only in hindsight.

We’ve all been visited by greatness & not been prepared, that great flash of an idea whilst drunk at 2am that you didn’t write down. How many great songs, innovations & stories have we lost as a society to that, to our own lack of preparation? How many of our families left Anfield in 1990, unprepared for what was to happen & assuming greatness would simply fall back in our laps in the following years? By all accounts, without really celebrating or taking it all in. I wasn’t even born in 1990, my parents weren’t even 30, younger than I am now, drunkenly, hastily, scrawling this into a phone post-match. They’re both in their mid-60s now, nearly retired – life is truly what happens to you whilst you’re busy making other plans. You can only recognise greatness in hindsight, but you can miss it if you’re not prepared.

There are no words for yesterday because in so many ways, you’ve been preparing for this all your life. And that way, so much of this dream, this miracle, is you and me. You’ve seen Liverpool win the league, it’s a dream you’re given early on, usually by a parent or grandparent. You’ve seen the reality in old worn-out Kop tapes & photographs, it has lived in your own dreams for years over countless nights. We took those dreams & made them ours, we decided that this madness was all for us, we decided that we were for each other. You, me, and this club. On some deep, primaeval level, all of this dwells in and stems from that. There are no words, because it’s a life’s work, a terminus, an endpoint & you can’t sum up greatness in words, only feelings. Let me tell you, greatness feels good, and I wasn’t prepared for it.

But with hindsight, it all makes sense. Of course, it had to happen this way, all those setbacks, all that preparation. Of course, it means more when you’ve had it, but had it taken away from you at the same time. Unable to share it with your fellow dreamers. Of course, there’s poetry in Crystal Palace staging a comeback to take the league away from you, then doing the same to ensure you win it at Anfield, all demons of 13/14 exorcised. Of course, Klopp didn’t get to win this one, he was too busy putting the work in to make sure it happened for the next guy. Of course, we didn’t expect any of this, but that makes it all the sweeter, because it’s undeniable & we get four long weeks to savour it & to tell them all what it feels like. Greatness can creep up on you like that.

Mo Salah knows what greatness feels like. He knows enough to stop and take a photo of it, to bring you with him & make sure you see it too. He knows enough to live in greatness and navigate it, to take time to smell the roses and give them each their due. Most importantly, he knows it takes preparation, incredible amounts of preparation, and it’s that which makes this season truly his & possibly puts him at the top of the pile for Liverpool legends. Salah isn’t just convinced of greatness; he seeks it out at every opportunity. He loves you because you demand greatness and are convinced it, you love him because he’s proof that demanding greatness from yourself is the only way to ensure it happens.

A word on the manager – I’ve said previously, when Klopp departed, that I could recite swathes of his aphorisms, particularly from his initial press conference & unveiling. “History isn’t so cool to carry around in a backpack”, “we have to turn from doubters to believers” etc. Slot is almost zen-like in his pre- and post-match comments, but make no mistake, he is just as open as his predecessor about his goals & his standards. A quick Google produces this line when discussing the upcoming season & his lack of time with the squad because of the Euro’s “It is a disadvantage – but not an excuse”. Simple. Clear. Prepared. It is hard to author greatness, I imagine it is even harder to pick up the pen of someone else & continue it, but for that,t Slot deserves both our full love and gratitude. He prepared for this, and it was his life’s work to do so, just like it was yours.

So much of greatness is preparing for it & if you’re prepared, usually it happens. You don’t really notice it at the time, you live it in hindsight. A lifetime to revel in the memories of a good or important day. It happened around you rather than to you. The memory of yesterday becomes the joy of today. Well, the joy of yesterday is that the greatness was there for all to see, and it had been a long time coming for all of us. Sometimes it takes a lifetime for greatness to arrive. Thankfully, we were prepared for it, this team made it so that we had a long time to get ready to drink it in. Let me tell you, greatness feels good – for once, no hindsight needed. Liverpool Football Club, back on their perch, the most successful team in English football, champions for the 20th time.