At the Wanda Metropolitano, well after the final whistle, after the medals had been presented and the big-eared trophy lifted, Liverpool’s players and coaching staff started assembling near the end occupied by their traveling fans. The stands on that side were packed to the rim, almost as if a major European final was about to get underway. Once the horizontal array of red jerseys and black jackets had grown big enough, the speakers started playing You’ll Never Walk Alone, the anthem and totem Liverpool Football Club, and their city, live by.
By the time the song reached its chorus of “Walk On…”, the line on the pitch was complete. The entire backroom staff stood shoulder to shoulder with the players. There wasn’t any overzealous display of toned abdominal muscles, or someone holding aloft their jersey with name and number facing the fans. It had been a long and arduous journey for this team, often decided by moments of inspiration and individualistic magic, but it was a journey taken together. They sang along with the fans, the Champions League trophy kept in the middle as a mark of shared possession.
The air in the city of Liverpool moves a little differently from the rest of England, especially London. It is a city built on the sweat and toil of dockers and shipwrights. In the late nineteenth century, Liverpool’s docks were responsible for more than 75 percent of the cotton entering the country.
Between that scale of opulence and the unemployment and apathy under the Margaret Thatcher government of the 80s, the city rode crests and troughs as a community. They have often fought an unfair, often implausible, battle against London, the technicolor picture of wealth and affluence. But they have been defiant, not submissive, never bending backward in a plea for inclusion.