Once Napoleon had roused himself and his remaining army from the ashes of Moscow, only to be pummeled at Maloyaroslavets and then smashed again at Berezina, one wonders whether he took a moment to survey the wreckage and think about what a kick he was getting from it all.
To my astonishment I’m getting as much fun out of following Liverpool this season as I ever have. Certainly more than I did as a kid watching the behemoth of the 80s roll its way across the endless plains of successful campaign after successful campaign.
What’s going on? It’s not for the football. The Chelsea game apart, performances have been at best respectable, at worst woeful. Even Steven Gerrard dragging out a classic late turnaround against Napoli was all unwelcome deus ex machina. Or was it just me? Maybe I’m too much of a dilettante to get it properly.
That does hint at some of the pleasure available here, though. It’s about the power of the narrative. One thing sport is about is conflict and struggle—overcoming your opponents, overcoming your limitations, until the climax overcomes (or underwhelms) your expectations and prepares your rebirth for the next episode. We can usually count on at least that.
But this season has the trajectory of a proper epic, with every up followed by a crashing down, and every down followed (eventually) by some kind of release. It makes for a strangely satisfying experience, this pushing at the limit of feeling. It’s doing things properly: brilliant in beating Chelsea; the Old Trafford defeat made epic, even though it wasn’t really, by the preposterous comeback and Berbatov’s hat trick; the most recent defeats Precambrian in their spinelessness.
It’s great entertainment—and even when the football itself isn’t, the caravan certainly is. The takeover saga had saints, villains, brinksmanship and farce par excellence. And now the Kop turns on its own. Neutrals must be having fun.
It all adds to the drama. Any England fan will recognize the quality—we elevate 1986 over 1982, 1998 over the competence and capitulation of 2002, and 1990 above all. Scotland may not have much to look back on, but there’s always 1978, a textbook tragedy in just three acts. Donovan against Algeria will take its own place as the defining US soccer moment, until the next one.
It’s about more than just drama, though. Great watching is one thing; everyone can enjoy it—but when it’s your drama. . . Dominating by winning everything would be nice, but dominating by monopolizing attention will do just as well.
One imagines Napoleon’s perverse satisfaction, sledging west through the devastation of the Smolensk road, at knowing it was all down to him. It might all have turned to dust, but it was his dust and everyone else was breathing it in.
This isn’t what I wanted. When Roy Hodgson was appointed, I was delighted to be taking a step back from the self-inflicted pitches and yaws of Rafa’s ridiculous last year. I wanted a sensible rebuilding job, for the club to live within its means, for sensible, incremental improvement.
Well I didn’t get any of that. And I’m grateful.
After the debacle against Wolves it looked like Roy would be relieved of his command within the week. But he clung on and, one gut-churning victory against Bolton later, the consensus was he’d be given time after all. Four days, to be precise—Blackburn have just routed that particular truce. No doubt there’s a little theatre still left to unfold, but this march is only going one way.
I’ll mourn him, because it will be the end to a project in which, like it or not, I had an investment. I backed it at the start, and stayed on board until the capitulation against Wolves. Roy appears to be a decent bloke caught by circumstance and I’m suitably ashamed as it all unwinds—especially now that I understand the real boon he’s brought us.
But more privately, I worry that it’ll work too well. I fear the dull effectiveness of an O’Neill or an Allardyce. Competent teams, grinding out respectable midtable finishes. Where’s the fun in that? We’d be just like everyone else, and we’re not—we deserve better and worse than that.
Ismael considers himself a Liverpool well-wisher – but he’s beginning to wonder.
Read More: Liverpool
by Ismael Klata · January 6, 2011
From a Neural’s perspective, it is great fun to watch the saga that is Roy Hogdson’s 143rd round in Jenga. Where he’s defied all odds and taken a seemingly impossible piece out of the stack, what could be considered a turn around success in and of it self. But that success is ecplised by the the fact that he still has to balance the piece back on top of the stack.
No one who’s watching thinks the tower won’t fall.
But no one’s will to place a bet on when, either.
My experience this season as a Liverpool fan has pretty much followed these same emotional lines. It really has been enthralling, even when, for the 10th time yesterday, I found myself agitated and cursing at the TV during another Liverpool misery away from Anfield. There shouldn’t be any surprise in January at seeing them play so poorly on the road. The camera pans to Roy, and he’s rubbing his face or pinching the bridge of his nose. Dumbstruck that David Ngog doesn’t really seem to work very well as Torres’ partner in a 4-4-2. It’s like watching a circus freak show, the guy shove the nail up his nose while he smiles for our amusement. “OH MY GOD! Aaarrgh, he’s doing it again! Look how awful that is!” But I’m not looking away.
Just think about the captivating horror show Sunday at Old Trafford. How could you possibly miss that? The final professional end of a four-decade career that took Roy through Scandanavia, Italy, learning multiple languages, surviving, making friends everywhere. Roy will manage somewhere else rather than retire, but never again will he see this kind of spotlight. Maybe Fergie will give his gum to Roy as a souvenir after the match?
@Chris The Jenga analogy is fantastic. Of course, 143 rounds are impossible to complete. But with Roy, are they?
I’m just looking forward to the new boss, simply so I can boo him relentlessly for not hauling five trophies in his first week on the job.
@Jim
I have a predisposition to hyperbole.
@Chris Could any description of Liverpool’s season really qualify as hyperbolic? I mean, we got a post here describing it as Napoleonic – and I’m totally buying in. Shoot, Napoleon might not be grand enough for this season!
@Jim
Also, I was in bar yesterday to watch the Chels V Wolves travesty (Bosingwa’s got a seemingly permanent spot on my sh*t list, it started as a non permanent spot due simply to the unibrow, it was made closer to permanent yesterday) and the only seat was a bit to the left of the screen with my boys playing. Directly in front of me was the Liverpool match. I could not tear my eyes away from the screen in front of me whenever they would show Hogdson. His reactions on the sideline are entertainment par excellance.
You get the feeling from watching him that he feels like something is being done to him and not the other way round. He routinely looks like someone unjustly accused of murder as an eyewitness gives testimony to seeing him standing over the body with a bloody knife and he can’t understand why God could ever be so unfair….
…. instead of thinking, “Hey, picking up that knife when I stumbled upon that dead body was a bad idea…. I need to rethink my decision making paradigm.”
Brooks Peck over at The Dirty Tackle has posted so truly great pictures of Hogdson that really show the lack of understand he has for his own ‘misfortune’
@James T
Ha!
@Jim
Fair point indeed.
I can identify with this notion of “perverse satisfaction.” My first sports loyalty is to the Vikings of the NFL. I discovered that I took no less pleasure from following this season, which lurched from one debacle to another before concluding with a last-place finish in the division, than last season, when the Vikings were among the league’s elite. In fact, this past season might have been even more enjoyable, since I did not have the gnawing fear that a winning year would finish with the Vikings’ customary, spectacular collapse (as happened last year, three points short of the Super Bowl).
I have obviously over-posted here and not even said what I set out to.
Great post, Ismael.
More ramblings because this post is just outstanding. The only downside of all the tremendous mood swings and twists in the Liverpool narrative is that no one chronicling the story seems to care much for taking the ride with us. It’s the same lazy storylines on TV and in the papers/websites. “Torres looks disinterested” and “No one else is capable of rising up to Steven Gerrard’s level.” And the rusty nail in the ball of my foot, “I feel sorry for Roy.” I’d rather be hated than pitied.
The only one who lets loose a bit is Rory Smith from the Telegraph, but I only really notice his personality on Twitter. The published pieces are insightful, but not really willing to laugh at the whole situation. It’s a shame.
I don’t think it’s pointless to rail against the media’s failure on this story because, hate them or hate them slightly less at times, we’re all engaged with the story they are helping present. As much as the analysis guy yesterday (Glen Hoddle?) drove me up the friggin’ wall, I never turned the sound down. They’re part of the experience, and they have their merits. Look at how much (mostly) everyone enjoys Ray Hudson.
Instead, so much of the media’s effort is spent telling a story that reached a pinnacle during this glorious, magic-hour photographed montage set in the 1980s, then on the next page switched to “Setting: Anfield Road, Merseyside, Winter 2010-11.” Hey guys, there’s a few laughs to be had here! Look, it’s Christian Poulsen!
Ugh-there are some real clowns on this thing. This is the epitome of the reality show age: “fans” who take as much pleasure from their team falling to shambles as when they perform well. Why? Because a shitshow is entertaining. Reality TV has no room for substance, it is all consumed with creating conflict and drama-not to sort anything out but for its own sake. That silly drama seems to be what people are embracing here. I get that everyone else in the league loves to watch us go through this as I would love to see Man U fall apart but for our own fans to enjoy it is perverse. That is not Liverpool and that is not what we should celebrate about our team, it’s what we should be ashamed of. I’ll take out usual 4th place finish without the hysteric over this nonsense any day.
@Jim
Even more so, I don’t think it would be as entertaining or ‘fun’ for Liverpool fans (or for those who aren’t, but are watching the saga closely) if the media were on the bus with you. Part of the reason we are football fans is that deep down, we enjoy to torment and agony, no matter how much we say its unbearable.
Like a misunderstood artist, we live in pain, but we know that without that pain, the love of the art would not be as strong. The solitude and lonliness of not having others ‘along for the ride’ seems painful, but it adds to unique nature of the experience and deepens the experience thusly.
Or maybe we make ourselves feel that way because the pain truly is unbearable…
I wonder if Michael Sheen is working on his Hodgson impression in preparation for filming ‘The Damned United 2: No Merseyside’ in a few years.
I’m wondering whether dropping to the bottom end of the premier league can really be considered a napoleonic fall. Do you know what Darlington fans would give to back in the bottom end of the football league?
Perhaps Liverpool might like to see how a good spell in the Championship can straighten a team out (with an optional sacking of chris Hughton).
@James Of course the pain is unbearable! It’s not as if I’m choosing to find black humor in watching this team go 3-0 down fairly toothlessly in midweek at Blackburn instead of finding happiness in 4-1 win at Old Trafford. But if all that was interesting about the game was winning, winning, trophies, winning, trophies and winning (in that order), I wouldn’t be able to stand what’s happening at all and probably stop watching.
But what’s the point of following the team this season if you feel “Liverpool is too good” to be going through such misery and awfulness? They’re not. It’s happening. You can be disgusted by it, exclusively, or you can be disgusted by it along with experiencing any of the numerous other emotions swirling about this season. Sure, you can watch every match as a coiled spring of white-hot revulsion, incensed at the slide of my favorite club, but to what end?
I watch Top Chef, but that doesn’t make me any less passionate or concerned about Liverpool Football Club.
@Jim Of course it is happening. My point is not to deny reality but to say that we are too good (read smart) to take pleasure in our own downfall. Also white hot rage and amusement are hardly the only choices available to us. Liverpool will never cease to interest me-they’re my club. I don’t have a problem with “interest” in the club as it goes through hard times, I have a problem with our own supporters taking pleasure in it-that’s what the original post and many comments were about. There is a big difference between interest and pleasure (I am interested when I see an accident, not pleasured). So Top Chef aside (a non-sequitur?) I think we can have a sense of humor about ourselves without actually liking what’s happening while also not loosing our heads. But I would add that the so called amusement of the drama unfolding is doing exactly what you decry by hyperbolically promising a top four finish after a loss and calling for the gaffer’s head after a loss. It’s the lack of insight brought about by the coverage and the general stupidity of the media circus that makes this ordeal all the less pleasurable, not more as some contend.
@Chris
“You get the feeling from watching him that he feels like something is being done to him and not the other way round. He routinely looks like someone unjustly accused of murder as an eyewitness gives testimony to seeing him standing over the body with a bloody knife and he can’t understand why God could ever be so unfair….”
His post match rationalizations for poor or better form (doesnt matter which) read out like a josef k. testimony from kafkas “the trial,” preemptively answering half of all questions in ramblings which show he knows whats going on but just wants everyone to leave him alone so he can just coach football. Its evident he hates standing in front of that microphone, unfortunately his position beckons him, but i dont think this is how he envisioned this season happening. Every answer feels like a last ditch attempt to stifle the fury of the kop for just one more game. Because the next game will see a series of triangle passes between Cole and Torres leading to an Ngog goal. That goal or any one like it will rescue Hodgson, except everyone is willing to admit that is never going to happen except him. It was supposed to be a rebuilding year for roy to at least retain european competition and stamp his mark on liverpool fc. I would dread coming to work in his shoes, probably would have quit and retired to the country by now.
By the way YNWA Roy, except for like maybe sometime later this week or the week after, Anfield faithful together with NESV still aren’t sure what crimes you have committed.
@James I see we’re closer in agreement than I thought, although I’m failing to see how being amused or laughing at some aspects of the situation disrespects ourselves or the club. The media coverage of events at Liverpool is more of a sideshow or a distraction. I don’t see it as leading the narrative at all. For many, sure, they probably judge the events based upon how the Guardian, the Daily Mail or (shudder) James Lawton interprets it for them. And yes, I wish at least a few media members took a less serious view of what’s happening. But I hardly see them as integral to the story. Their role to this point has been to point out every other day or so that Liverpool ruled England and Europe for a long period of time, and now the team isn’t very good. You’re right, it’s not insightful at all. But it’s pretty much only the popular media coverage that keeps offering that line of thought, and I’d argue it’s easily disregarded. What’s the point of getting bothered by people you know are wrong and more often than not will be wrong?
The aspect of this post that grabbed me was Ismael’s claims about the power of the narrative. It’s undeniable that, given the long history of the club and all recent events, this is one king monster behemoth of a story. I like good stories. (In this context, by good I mean well-told or something similar – not the opposite of bad.) But I’m taking this all in on my own terms and not through someone else’s filter. Yours or someone else’s terms might differ, but I’m certainly not enjoying or loathing any part of Liverpool’s season based on the terms set by some scribbler assigned to the Merseyside football beat from some London-based newspaper. And I’d encourage most everyone else to ignore the same. Read it for perspective, perhaps, but they’re not much more than a repetitive, atonal Greek chorus.
The Top Chef reference was just a play on your argument that watching reality shows has produced a generation that takes pleasure in watching a disaster/train wreck/calamity. I think people have always found something transfixing about watching a disaster. Maybe I’m just too old and don’t take those shows seriously enough, but I don’t see any connection between them and why Roy Hodgson furiously rubbing his face makes me laugh.
martin o’neill is a phenomenal manager and id be delighted to see him come to anfield. but he wont. he’ll go to united. or sit at home with his pipe and slippers
@Jim I love Top Chef actually but I do see it as an outlier for reality TV. I was thinking of the more popular Real Housewives, Jersey Shore, Survivor, Wife Swap, Bad Girls Club, etc on which producers purposefully find short tempered buffoons and put them in contentious situations just to cause conflict for its own sake. It’s that spirit that I see coming from the press (as you do) but also from this post that seems to revel in any conflict concerning the club rather than a solid but not dramatic season. I mean the author imagines Napoleon enjoying his defeat. Napoleon being defeated is a “good story” certainly but not only is the analogy not based on a retelling of hard fought defeat (rather the aftermath) but the idea that anyone would enjoy a defeat simply because they are popular enough to make their defeat newsworthy seems absurd. If anything, I think we like our defeats to be private rather than say, “Hey everyone, look at me. I just lost. Pretty neat, huh?”
2010/2011 Managerial Hell. Tragedy or comedy?
As a recovering Galaxy fan, this is EXACTLY how I felt in 2007, Beckham’s first gloriously disastrous year.
(By 2008, however, the novelty of losing spectacularly had worn off.)
Thank you for this – it is fantastic and brought me much joy. That is all.
@Joy O. Anfield Same here. I could relate as a Liverpool fan. Hey, maybe the process will repeat itself and we could get a surprise win at Old Trafford on Sunday?
@gelyn: yup. The next Act starts here – time for an even more massive swing upwards now.
The thought of Martin O’Neil as Liverpool manager, jumping up and down at the side of the pitch like a school girl who’s drank too much Sunny D is enough for me to rip my season ticket up.
Sam Allardyce as manager is enough for me to start a war!
My dream is to see Liverpool relegated under Dalglish. A disgraceful club with the worst supporters in Europe.
You think you all are having fun with it – try this one on for size: It’s my first season as a LFC supporter! After the World Cup, I realized I’d been losing interest in typical American sports and leagues, so I decided to pick a Premiership side and throw my lot in with them. I didn’t want to pick last year’s winner, that’s too easy, nor a team who’d just been promoted, even though my grandmother hails from Blackpool. In the end I went with Liverpool for a few reasons – Historically important club in a rebuilding phase, new manager coming in, plus Paul Dalglish managed our local team in the new NASL, plus a good friend I work with has been a lifelong LFC supporter, so I’d have someone to watch and celebrate/commiserate with. I went all out – watched the Official History videos, watched Istanbul, even ordered a Torres jersey and started setting my alarm for games.
I watched the Arsenal game at the start of the season and despite the loss, felt I had hitched my wagon to the right team – Important players didn’t play at all, Cole sent off before the half, and still the team fought and led most of the way. Listening to the songs from the supporters …everything said this was surely a team on the rise.
And then…the rest of the season happened. Plus, the local side fired Paul…but I’m still here and in it for the long haul. It’s safe to say I’ll never forget my first season as a Red!
@Chris How was Chelsea v Wolves a travesty? Hennessey made one decent save, both sides hit the woodwork. Wolves were value for their win, good on Hunt for the assist and how good was Zubar’s shot that won the corner? Zubar!