Premier League Team Preview: Liverpool FC

This is a preview. There are many others like it, but this one is Liverpool’s.

Some parts will be true. Others may be less so. Not out of any desire to deceive, you understand, but simply because this is a preview largely aimed at an audience that likely has no great desire to read about an English football¹ club’s fifth-choice center back.

Oh, you can protest. You can say that you want to know. But then you’d have to read about the first choice pairing and the back-up defensive midfielder and the utility forward and the reserve goalkeeper. And then your eyes would glaze over. Because you don’t really want to know about the reserve center back who might make three substitute appearances over the course of the season.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that certain parts of this preview may be made up. Not out of any desire to deceive, you understand, but simply because accuracy takes effort, and we can all agree that said effort would be largely misplaced under the circumstances.

So. Liverpool. It’s in England. It’s where the Titanic was registered on account of the White Star Line headquarters being stationed there. It’s also where Liverpool Football Club plays—I know, I was surprised when I found out, too.

Now, Liverpool hasn’t won much domestic silverware in recent seasons, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been bringing home trophies. Just a few years ago Liverpool won the European Championships. And then a few weeks back they went and captured the Copa America in Argentina.

A few of our more pedantic readers may point out that the European Championships and Copa America are competitions between countries, regional tournaments held to help carry bored football fans through the summer when there isn’t a World Cup. They will probably also point out that the record books list Spain as being the most recent European Championship winner and Uruguay as the current holders of the Copa America.

So: Liverpool are the current European and South American champions. On account of more Liverpool players being involved in winning said championships than can be claimed by any other English club. The parade’s next Thursday. Don’t try to take this from us or we’ll cut you.

Liverpool. In England. The Titanic. Current holders of the Copa America and European champions. Also, Liverpool hated Rupert Murdoch before you did and would appreciate fruit baskets and quality liqueurs for being ahead of the times.

As for Rupert Murdoch, he’s the Australian who got bovine spongiform encephalopathy by planking a cow before going on to found Fox News. But you probably already knew that. Plus part of it may or may not be true and I don’t entirely understand what planking is.

In any case, now the whole world hates him, and therefore you hate him. Unless you don’t. In which case, hello, you must have missed the part where SB Nation was founded by Daily Kos creator Markos Moulitsas.

And when you boil things down to that, it pretty much means that if you’re a regular visitor to SB Nation you have a moral obligation to follow and support Liverpool Football Club. Or else you probably shouldn’t be spending time on SB Nation in the first place. Because SB Nation is one step removed from the center of the internet commiesphere and Liverpool hated Rupert Murdoch³ before Markos Moulitsas knew who Rupert Murdoch was.

Liverpool also has one of the world’s top goalkeepers. He’s Spanish and sometimes when he takes his shirt off at the end of the match it’s hard not to notice that he shaves his armpits. Which is a mildly disturbing look for somebody who appears as though he wouldn’t be out of place playing linebacker in American Football, but will assuredly be a selling point for somebody. If that somebody is you, then you should probably keep that bit of information to yourself.

Speaking of which, Liverpool’s holding midfielder Lucas Leiva is one of the top five holding midfielders in Europe. People who think England’s national team isn’t broken don’t like him very much. This tends to say more about them than it does about him.

But since you probably already either did or didn’t know all of that, those quick overviews likely didn’t do anybody any good. Which was probably the point back at the beginning before your eyes glazed over and you stopped paying attention. In any case, Liverpool’s going to win the league this year. Or at least win next summer’s European Championship. And they may look great or horrible while doing or not doing it, that, or something else. Though in any case we’ll hate Rupert Murdoch, and isn’t that what’s really important in life?