Liverpool FC
From Frikipedia
And it's Liv-Er-Pool, Liverpool FC, We're by far the greatest team, The world has ever seen.
Or so the semi plagiarised song goes.
Contents |
History
Back when football was all jumpers for goalposts and improbably tight shorts, Liverpool dominated the game. They still hold the record for league championship wins, and have won the FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup more times than fans care to remember.
Since the advent of the Premiership, Sky Sports and knee length shorts, however, Liverpool have faired slightly worse, almost to the point of being bubbish.
In the early years of the Premiership, Liverpool were managed by Graeme Souness, who was at the early stages of a bet he had made that he could cripple every single English football team by the year 2020. He started well, spending his time selling all Liverpool's good players for cut-price losses and buying players as mighty as Torben Piechnik, Julian Dicks and Istvan Koszma.
Predictably, the bubbishness of the team soon took its toll, and throughout 1992-1994 Liverpool were more likely to flirt coyly with relegation than wave their cocks in the face of the title, leaving the insufferably vapid Manure to win everything.
Souness was sacked in early 1994, and Roy Evans took over. Who fared little better and successfully managed to finally eradicate the bootroom dynasty of great Liverpool managers. Liverpool did manage a League Cup win in 1995 under Evans, largely because Steve McManaman was playing.
Fearing that Evans was accomplishing little more than treading rather turgid water, with 6th place in the table rapidly becoming the home of Liverpool FC, the Liverpool board installed the red-scarf-and-paedo-coat wearing Gerard Houllier. Ostensibly to work alongside Evans, but really to learn English off him before kicking Evans out for good in late 1998.
Under Houllier, Liverpool became almost good again. They won 5 trophies during the 2000-01 season (although only two of those actually counted) and with players like Michael Owen, Sami Hyypia and John-Arne Riise, Liverpool finally had a half decent team. Indeed, during the 2001-02 season, fans stood in open disbelief as Liverpool still had a mathematical chance of the title with just two games to go.
Sadly for Houllier, he proved to be spectacularly bad at reading how good players were based on a World Cup, and after the 2002 event, he signed half the Senegal team and Bruno Cheyrou. All of whom were bubbish.
As the team stagnated in a horribly defensive manner, it was time for a change. Rafa Benitez took over from Houllier, and the team went from good to great. Via slightly crap.
Their astounding Champions League win in 2005, after gifting AC Milan a three goal head start and having to cope with Harry Kewell breaking a nail, forced UEFA to rewrite the whole rulebook to acknowledge Liverpool's greatness. And in 2006, the team recorded their best ever Premiership finish. Woo.
The 2006 FA Cup was won by Liverpool, once again falling behind before fighting back to draw 3-3 in the final minute, causing John Motson to have a small heart attack. They then won on penalties, after West Ham proved to have the same ability to convert from the spot as England tend to.
The 2007 Season
2007 has been a rollercoaster ride for Liverpool and its fans.
Early season form was little short of terrible, as the squad adopted the away form of the French army, and suffered a series of demoralising defeats to Chelsea, Manure, Bolton and worst of all, local "rivals", Everton.
Form picked up in October, and Liverpool began to steadily climb back up the table, though the Premiership title was now already out of reach.
After Christmas, form took another dive as Arsenal dumped Liverpool out of both the FA Cup and the League Cup in the space of a few days, winning the latter fixture 6-3 after Rafa mistakenly believed it was time for the reserves to get a game.
Now, with 3rd in the league (well behind Chelski and Manure) secured, the team have the Champions League as their sole hope of silverware again, knocking out the favourites Barcelona and a team of Dutch amateurs en route to another semi-final against Chelsea. Somehow, they managed to win, winning 1-0 at Anfield to cancel out Chelski's 1-0 first leg win, then winning the penalty shoot out in a very un-English manner.
All this has set up a final with AC Milan (who, if UEFA had stuck to their guns over the match-fixing punishments, whouldn't even be in the competition) in a repeat of "that magical night in Istanbul" two years ago.
The final is tonight, in Athens. If Liverpool somehow manage to win, expect this page to descend into a drunken Friki-based cheer at around 10pm (GMT) tonight. If they don't, expect Friki to be quiet for the next few days, mourning the loss whilst trying to fashion a voodoo doll of Kaka out of a loo roll and some pipe cleaners.
The Takeover
Liverpool were bought in 2007 by Alabaman-sounding Tom Hicks, and major shaving oligarch, George Gillett, in the latest episode of the great club sale which is sweeping the English game.
Gillett/Hicks embarrased themselves slightly in their first press conference, by referring to the club as the "Liverpool Reds". But since then have proved to be remarkably in touch with the game, happy to leave the day-to-day running of the club to former chief executive, Rick Parry, whilst they concentrate on the business side of things.
A £40 million boost to Rafa's transfer kitty for the summer has been announced (enough to buy Cristiano Ronaldo's left knee, or alternatively 5 Peter Crouchs) and the duo have also stumped up the cash to allow Liverpool's new stadium to be built, hopefully in time for the 2010/11 season, unless they hire the Aussie builders who did Wembley.
The Future
Probable run of 2nd places in the league behind Chelsea, lots of lovely cup trophies. Rapture.
Have a better chance of winning the Stanley Cup than George Gillett's other major sports team, the Montreal Canadiens.
