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| Credit: Tom/The Guardian |
Before the match got under way, I had thought that Liverpool would never outdo Real in terms of persons and styles. Neither did it occur to me that Liverpool would pose any real challenge to Real, not a bit with the presence of the Modric-Casemiro-Kroos triad. To put it simply, Real had put their invisible hands on the title on the theoretical page and in some practical minds. Yet, my mind was inhabited by sheer curiosity as to how Mo Salah, one of two players in the current world who could end the hegemony of the Messi-Ronaldo duo, could lead his company in an effort to fight against the White. The Egyptian at that time was the flame of spirit, the inspiration, and the reason of the Reds, and the fresh breeze for neutral fans under the monotonous climate of the oligarchy-like football world. Football fans, it seemed that, looked forward to the match, not to expect the unexpectedness but how the Reds could stand up themselves. A struggle, the decent and fair one, was expected, to be exact.
But, the flame was snuffed out. The spirit was drained off of Salah’s steps out of the field. Thenceforth the Reds’ journey, to borrow Wordsworth’s words, would “be shortly run and couldn’t see another sun”. Reds were diluted and got pale, as they seemed to be soon afterwards in the face of Bale’s flight from the tuft to send the ball into the net, not long after a glimmer of hope had been lighted.
The match is egregiously asinine and kind of absurd but displays the extreme case of football’s essence: the whatever-can-happen stuff on the way to predictable or unpredictable results, despite in the negative fashion at this time. The supreme side deserves the title. The superb trickster deserves the gall of many a football fan. The history is made, by the white noise.