As far as football fans go, there’s always been a fine line between being defeatist and being delusional; with sections of our support betting that Real Madrid, in fine fashion, are going to topple Liverpool tomorrow night in the Champions League, you have to wonder how many are actually going to bother watching the Reds run out in Spain.
Maybe that sounds like a terribly negative thing to say, but if I knew without question that they were going to get spanked, to be honest, I’d just swerve it all together. There’s no joy to be had in playing some cosmic game of “I told you so” — at least not for me, but thankfully I lack the prescience of the aforementioned anointed few, so I’m going to roll the dice on this one and put the match on the ol’ boob-tube, because we have a shot at picking up some points.
Let’s be honest — that’s a bit unlikely. Coming off our second outing in the Premier League where we’ve failed to find the net, rolling into the Santiago Bernabéu and expecting to put the reigning European champions to the sword cross over onto the delusional side of the line. After being unable to put at least one past the likes of Newcastle United and Hull City, how could I possibly think that we’ve got a hope and a prayers against Los Galácticos? Well, we’re not about to forfeit, are we?
“It’s certainly something we need to be better in. For the team to have confidence, it’s important that you look like you can score a goal” said Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers when asked ahead of tomorrow’s match about his sides woes in front of the net. “We didn’t look as if we could threaten so much. I’m a creative and attacking coach, and we have seen over my time here how we build teams to score goals in order to win games. But at the moment it’s not quite happening for us. We just need to analyse the game and work harder to make it work.”
With that being said, can it not work on a Tuesday night on the continent?
I’m going to avoid invoking the miracle of Istanbul or even that one time against Olympiacos with all the frantic, last minute madness and the glorious “oh, you beauty” meltdown. We’re not at the point of needing divine intervention quite yet, and frankly, if you think otherwise, you may want to give yourself a quick check. There’s only a few teams in the world that could even think of holding a candle to Real Madrid, or, even just Cristiano Ronaldo at this point, but upsets do happen. Teams that are in a rut, like ourselves, come out of them. Sides that are flying always end up dipping low at some point. Screws fall in and screws — well, they fall out.
Nothing is written in stone. Maybe I’m grasping at straws hoping for a completely unexplainable dip in form from the La Liga pace-setters and maybe I’m just hoping my team shows some signs of life or that they can kick on from here. I don’t write match previews for matches I think we’re going to lose — what would be the point in that? — and I don’t watch matches where I’ve already written my side off.
Win, lose or draw there won’t be any smug I told you so garbage coming from my end; I’m a bit too busy being proud of what we’ve accomplished and supporting this team and this manager to worry about that nonsense; if you’re not going to give us even a chance, I think you have to wonder why you’re even bothering. Have I finally fallen off the fence onto the delusional side? Come over here and find out…
–Steven
