It is just before 7:30 am and we are about to embark on a visit to Liverpool and the surrounding area to get an idea of the enormity of the occasion that awaits Anfield on Sunday.
We will head towards the Kirkby training base to speak to Arne Slot before heading for the stadium, the pubs and cafes of the Postal Code L4, before going to the city center and the seafront, passing in front of the Royal Liver Building and the Cavern Club.
But the best place to start when you are looking to paint an image of the Sunday amount is the rear garden. Not a particular garden, but just to think about the backgrounds of Liverpool fans.
For what? Because it was the site of thousands of festivals through the Merseyside on June 25, 2020, when the 19th title of Liverpool was confirmed. The pandemic and locking rules of coronavirus meant that it was not possible for fans to come together in their usual places, although many tell us how they have folded the directives.
Our opening gambit to each fan to whom we are talking about is to ask what extent the winning number 20 will mean for them – and the answer of almost everyone begins with a story on the way in which the holidays, the parades and the sense of the euphoria were removed by Covid.
“It was just me and my father in our playing garden, you will never walk alone on the closing of the neighbors,” explains Abigail Rudkin, a local artist. “It was soft to be, it was quite alone in a way that we could not celebrate together.”
Liverpool ended his title of 30 years for a high flight title in 2020 when they went to the Premier League
However, fans were not allowed to be in the stage and many missed an appropriate celebration due to the coronavirus pandemic
The Reds require only one point to claim a 20th title of high -flying league.
Another fan, a school teacher who asks not to be appointed, remembers: “I had bought a decent bottle of vintage champagne and I had smoked bombs. I left them and I drank my champagne out of the bottle in the rear garden. The three of us have sitting together in the match made a group call and had a virtual drink together.
John Gibbons, a presenter on the excellent Podcast Anfield Wrap, said: “I went to my friend, we were four of us sitting in different parts of the garden, all spaced on these terrace chjets, drinking blond beer cans. Although it was a good night, we missed a lot. We could not go to Anfield to welcome the champions and take advantage of them.
“What I look forward to on Sunday is just saying” thank you “to the players. It’s a celebration, but I want to applaud them, encourage them and sing their names.
It is clear that Liverpool fans have never fully benefited from this last victory in the title. Thus, in many ways, Sunday – if they get a point or more against Tottenham – will be their first appropriate celebration of becoming champion since 1990. Many of those to whom we are talking about were not even born in 1990. Many others are no longer with us. Some were sitting on their father’s shoulders at the time, but will now have children by their side.
Glasses will be raised to those who were actually lost on the way on Sunday. This victory will be for them as much as the new generation of supporters.
“What I said to my boy this week was to celebrate each trophy as if it were your first and last,” said Terry Burke, sporting a high-visibility jacket on a cigarette break near Anfield. “When I was his age, we won machines – I never thought I had to wait half of my life to see another title!
Another, Jim Doyle, 85, toastra a title of 15th league of his life. He remembers having made a zoom quiz with his two sons when they won him in 2020 and, when he was asked if he had never planned such a long wait between 18 and 19, said: “No question.
“When you consider the players we have had, and I’m talking about local players such as Steven Gerrard, Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman, Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher, we should have won it at least once.
Fans are impatient to be in the stadium and among relatives when the club wins the elite
Reds only need to avoid defeat against Tottenham on Sunday afternoon to be champion
“We almost won him under Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez and Brendan Rodgers, but it was just a lot of relatives. He also puts us in Manchester United on the number of title victories, so it’s always a good thing!
Tommy Harper, 27, said: “For most of my childhood, I thought we never won him. The days of Roy Hodgson, the Quinquois with Rafa and Rodgers – it seemed that it would never come.
“Then, a hidden blow and we traveled the league without fans there to experience it – imagine this. Now we can win it, at home, in front of the fans … Finally … let’s hope it.
All these anecdotes are comforting and most of them have happy ends. Our smoked bomb friend told her neighbor that she could leave her safe without finding herself this weekend as he will be in Anfield.
Abigail will also be present, with his father – and his mother will be in a local pub to absorb the atmosphere.
“It means everything for me, to become in the ground with my father,” she says. “I don’t think they can get me out of the ground!”
There has been a feeling of waiting in the city for weeks and a feeling of dread for the Evertonians. Those who go to London for the Toffees match in Chelsea could be better invited to make a weekend, because Liverpool will be painted in red.
The bakery at home in the shadow of the Kop is preparing, with a special edition pie that reads “Champions 20” on pastry. The pubs are ready to be dry drunk, although a bartender – we will not name the ad to save his work – said: “I am tempted to shoot a Sickie on Sunday if we win it so that I can spend a night on the beer in town! I’m kidding, of course, but it will be one of the days of our lives.
Tickets are restarting for Mega-Money. The cheapest email sport could find online was £ 675, although the club tightens on the touts
Slot, whose family will be in Anfield for the match, has kept a low profile during their first year as boss
The police are also ready. Merseyside police refused to comment on Friday when asked, but there will be a greater presence in the streets. The holidays will continue for a long time in the night if Liverpool becomes champion, but the police do not expect many problems.
This will be helped by the fact that the opposition is Tottenham. With a semi-final of the Europa League on the horizon, spurs fans will certainly not care to watch Liverpool celebrate because it will mean that their Rivaux Amers, Arsenal, are again almost men.
Tickets are restarting for Mega-Money. The cheapest email sport could find online was £ 675, although the club is accompanied by touts, with life prohibitions for these rupture rules.
A man who had to abandon his ticket is Peter Clarkson, a holder of main season tickets since 1990. He has been at the wedding of his godson near Middlesbrough and really sought to recover a helicopter in Liverpool to do it in time.
It is clear that it is a city on the edge, but in the right direction. It’s not over until the big lady sings, but she warms her vocal cords. How the crowd of Anfield will also sing, surrounding their hymns.
Fans are all a little dizzy, but there is a guy who remains calm – the manager Slot. Asked about being a thumb of glory, he said: “Yes, but I prefer to make my mind on this thumb and not on what is happening later, because there is still a thumb to do.”
Slot, whose family will be in Anfield for the match, has kept a low profile during their first year as boss, but is assailed by Selfie and Autograph Hunters when he appears, as he did Thursday to visit a supermarket.
Champagne is on the ice around the city and the traffic jams may well be jumped around 6.30 p.m. For many, it will mean the end of a expectation of 35 years to have a happy birthday – and the start of one of the best nights in their lives.
