It’s the eve of the game and it feels like there’s going to be a divorce tomorrow. None of us want it as we didn’t want this to happen. We played earlier and a defeat meant very little and we were a bit shit and in some respects we still are. Liverpool is in my blood, literally, my grandfather was there at the formation of the club, and I had a season ticket for most of my adult life. My wife equally has a similar history and Galatasaray was my team in Turkey strongly initially influenced by my wife, now a big part of my life here.
I faced many rival supporters of other clubs who like religious zealots tried to convert me. But the die was cast and here we are.
The day of the match…
It was the quiet before the storm, we both pondered on the thought of both of our now deceased fathers were with us for the game. They would be polite and bad mouth the other behind their backs.
The game started with the Galatasaray defence quite generously giving us the ball In front of goal and we, being rather shit again, passed it to their goal keeper. Then take off Galatasaray, were on fire, deserved to score first and should have won by a lot more. Her family phoned to see how I was, if I had jumped off the balcony, but secretly how happy they were and don’t tell David, as ever the secret was immediately shared with me. We then watched post-match reaction from both countries. I was not alone, Redmen TV was also sad, cold comfort indeed.
The weekend before
Galatasaray comfortably win, leaving a gap as big as the Bosphorus between them and their noisy neighbours (Fenerbahçe) who could slip even further down the league as sleeping giant Trabzonspor finally wake up.
Liverpool as ever this season are shit, drawing against a team (Tottenham) on the verge of going down. Galatasaray will never get a better opportunity to beat us on Wednesday.
Even though I’m angry with some players, and especially the manager, I want us to win, even more so as everyone I meet says we beat you twice with a sinister playful smile. In fact, I might go there, replace Salah and score a goal myself.
We’re on the eve of destruction
It’s only a football match, said my wife on the eve of the game, as we both said that both our teams would lose, we’ll live. I’d had nightmares the previous night.
And she was right, there are a lot more important things happening in the world and maybe our late great manager Bill Shankly was wrong when he rather tongue in cheek said, “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.”
But I don’t think so.
The day, the game, the aftermath
Both of us woke up in anticipation, my wife a quite confident, me fearing the worst. I even in a moment of bravado sang YNWA in our local bookies, quickly followed by telling anyone who would listen how awful we are. This was all spontaneous and rather ill-advised but good old football banter won the day.
As it got closer to kick off, the unfair advantage of playing Galatasaray with no fans in the stadium was clear and especially telling during the game. They were banned due to flares at the previous away match. I bet you dozens of games had such flares that Europeans match night. If they even light a match in a ground a Turkish team get a ban, UEFA have a track record of making the national team and clubs suffer.
The start of game was frantic. Galatasaray froze, went a goal down but were still in it. Until the star striker Osimhen was injured (broken arm). He struggled on bravely but was foolishly left on the pitch by the manager for 35 minutes as the whole team became confused about what to do with the ball, realising their colleagues’ pain. In the second half they replaced him with Noa Lang, who should have started from the beginning as he had tormented Liverpool in the first leg. He too suffered a serious hand injury and Liverpool were rampant putting the game out of reach early in the second half.
Whilst it was good that we won I wasn’t joyous. I had seen Galatasaray play week after week on Turkish TV and given the right circumstance they could probably have won and also with a more European savvy coach. (DM/VK)
