What a week that was. A week in which the word ‘Liverpool’ ceased to be a pronoun and became a verb.

From now on if you’re on a mission and you know that your odds are astronomically stacked against you like a veritable underdog, and the chances of your making it are less than nil, you know that you can still ‘Liverpool’ through. ‘To Liverpool’ is what we can now say to show that we accomplished success when everyone thought we’d be epic fails.

If, like me, you did not watch the semi-final Champions League game on Tuesday, then, like me, please watch a replay of it. Liverpool needed to overcome a three-goal deficit from the away game and then score one more to win the game – and har, har we thought – how can that even be possible. We were totally convinced that it would be a boring Barcelona walkover.

So while we were watching a very dramatic Homeland episode, an even more incredible drama was unfolding on the Anfield pitch: the boys in red were busy scoring one goal after the other until they netted the four balls they needed, to go through to the final. It was an unbelievable comeback, which left the Barcelona team practically traumatised.

‘To Liverpool’ is what we can now say to show that we accomplished success when everyone thought we’d be epic fails

Let me clarify at this point, that I am not a Liverpool fan. Indeed, my team, Hibernians, gave me a lot of grief this week when first they lost the league and then the trophy. But the beauty of football is that everyone loves an inspiring game. Which is why, even if football is Chinese to you, look up ‘You’ll never walk alone/Anfield’ on YouTube and watch the fans, post-match, singing their football club anthem with the Liverpool players and the German coach (!) joining in.

Legend has it that fans singing You’ll Never Walk Alone always gives the players hope when all seems lost, but this time the fans were not singing it by way of encouragement but as sheer elation – particularly since the last time Liverpool were in a Champions League final was nearly 15 years ago (I was still in my 20s, gasp, so that’s a real long time). The YouTube clip is a tour de force of communal joy which will give you goose bumps, and if you’re a hopeless softy, you’ll even blub a bit too.

However, Tuesday’s game was not just about an act of defiance in the face of adversity. It was also a good show of teamwork in football. In the era of individual star players, with egos bigger than entire pitches, team playing is not so common. Just watch a Juventus game (the other anthem, ‘Juve Storia di un Grande Amore’, is the background soundtrack of life at home) and you’ll know what I mean – you feel dejected and wanting to gnaw your knuckle when they win, let alone when they lose.

Football is a deliriously jubilant event to watch when footballers weave teamwork on the pitch. And that’s what was so special about Tuesday – it gave us all hope that we too can Liverpool it when the going gets tough.

One extra-time point: the win made me very happy for a little boy from Żabbar, Eli, who supports Liverpool. Eli lost his mother and grandmother in a horrible car crash a few weeks ago and they were both huge supporters of Liverpool. I’m sure that from the land of yonder they worked their magic to show their son and grandson that he’ll never walk alone.

And the name is Archie

The majority of women who go back to work the day after they give birth, work from home in their elastic-waist pants. It must be particularly daunting that practically the day after you give birth you have to face the cameras and looking every inch the top model, you hold your baby for the world to see, Lion King style. This is what Duchess Meghan had to do to announce that her baby is called… drum roll… Archie. Archie? For a whole minute everyone’s shoulders slumped and around the world we all went ‘o-h’. 

My mother (Royal Family fan No 1) told me that those ‘royal observers’ on news channels were saying that Archie is a name given to pet dogs these days. The thing is that the line between dogs’ names and human names have blurred considerably.

Let’s face it, when is the last time you came across a dog called plain old-fashioned Fido? Seeing as the most popular dogs’ names are Max, Charlie, Jack, Daisy, Emma, Martha, that’s highly unlikely. My neighbour had a dog called like my daughter; my baby nephew shares a name with my friend’s cat. Since dogs are taking human names, that leaves babies, with either dogs’ names or unpronounceable ones.

So don’t worry Meghan, I feel you.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
twitter: @krischetcuti

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

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