Have given up a lot of my personal time and money to see Liverpool win this trophy, in all honesty. The amount of freelance work I've passed up on is actually appalling, and the return has been one league cup since 2006, that's it. One CL Final loss, one Europa League Final loss, an FA Cup Final loss, another League Cup Final loss, two close second place finishes, one CL SF loss, one Europa League SF loss, two owners, five managers, multiple legends passed on through. All of them now gone.
Elated to see Liverpool in the Final, but tired of not winning these trophies. It hurts too much. I don't live for Liverpool because obviously that would be dumb, but certainly this is really important. With my country being a total embarrassment in every way, and not qualifying for the WC on top of that, this is what I've got sports wise. Everything a fan could hope for really. A team full of players who can make their own way is what remains. Should they win, most of the credit will go to one or two players, but there's no way they'd be in this game without all 11 of them. All of them played games completely above and beyond what they should have been able to do in order to get to this game. It's time for someone to be a new legend. Time for a new trophy, time for #6.
I won't post again until the team sheets are out, but Real Madrid has a supremely major advantage in one way, they've done this before. On the other hand, Salah is carrying the hopes of his whole country. Mane has been talking about buying shirts for his village. Alexander-Arnold is just a kid. James Milner may never get this chance again. Henderson has stated himself that being left out of the Europa League Final is something that has been on his mind, I don't know what kind of psychological impact that has on a player. Andy Robertson started playing for an amateur team, this is his moment. These just aren't things the opponent has to think about, they've been there and done that. This is the part I'm worried about. People think about the impact these games have on fans, because ostensibly we're the ones who talk about them, but the impact it has on the players who win, and the people whose lives will be enriched by their winning, the kid in their village wanting to grow up to be like them, that's probably the most important part.
That Real Madrid knows how to do this probably does have a far larger impact than people want to admit, which is why teams like Ajax, Marseille, Atletico, Benfica, Dortmund, Dnipro, Bilbao, and yes, Liverpool, are the ones on the losing ends of big finals. Even when the logical outcome is that they win, there are cases like last week's Europa League Final, where one team literally passed the f***ing ball leading straight to goals over and over. If there is one benefit, it is that just like Atletico who just won that final, Liverpool were also in a European final, and should know exactly what leads to our demise. It is a matter of learning and avoiding it.