Once upon a time, Liverpool were a power in England. They were always one of the best teams in the Premier League. They won cups domestically and in Europe, including maybe the most dramatic Champions League comeback win in history in Istanbul back in 2005. They were a team of pride, of swagger and of confidence that they would always be a factor.
Liverpool can get its pride back with a Europa League win
It’s been a long time since Liverpool had something to really celebrate.
Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
In more recent years, though, that swagger has been absent. The success has been absent. And with those absences, the pride has been gone too.
This season, though, Liverpool have found their swagger again. Ever since Jürgen Klopp was hired after the failure that was the start of the campaign under Brendan Rodgers, there's been a different and ever-improving attitude around the squad, borne partly from the ever-flowing confidence of their manager, but also from the successes he's brought to the team.
Now that improvement has brought them to the Europa League final. With a win, Liverpool will finally get their pride back.
We've seen signs of it returning -- the dramatic comeback win over Dortmund in the Europa League quarterfinals, a dominating win over Manchester United in the round before that, humbling local rivals Everton in the Merseyside Derby -- but a victory over two-time defending champions Sevilla would be monumental for Liverpool, and would fully restore that long-lost pride. Taking down perhaps the best side in recent Europa League history would be incredible in and of itself -- and it would finally give Liverpool something to really celebrate again.
Sure, Liverpool have won the League Cup relatively recently -- but that’s just the League Cup. They haven’t won the league in 26 years, and they haven’t won the FA Cup in a decade. Their last European title was that 2005 triumph over Milan in the Champions League final. While the Europa League might not have quite the cachet of the Champions League, winning it would still give Liverpool their first major title in years, and if you thought the celebrations for them winning a couple knockout-round games was huge, wait until Liverpool bring that trophy back to Anfield.
But before the celebrations begin, Liverpool have to win, and that’s where Klopp and the team’s new-found swagger come in. It’s not a swagger borne of a boastful kind of confidence, though -- that’s the kind of false bravado that’s too easy to deflate with one shaky moment, and quickly turns into a scrambled panic. No, their swagger is borne of knowing that they have what it takes to beat almost any foe at any time, even if things don’t go their way early in the match.
They’ve developed the will to fight and scrape and work to stay in a match, always on the lookout for openings to take advantage of, and that gives them the kind of easy swagger on the pitch that says “yeah, we got this.” And thanks to that growing confidence Klopp has instilled in his players, Liverpool are taking advantage of those openings more and more often as the season has gone on.
They’re not guaranteed to win the Europa League even with that in mind -- Sevilla are a very, very good team, after all, and they know what it takes to win this match. They won the Europa League final each of the last two seasons, after all. But this Liverpool team, right now, is better suited and more likely to win this match than any Liverpool side since the Hicks & Gillette ownership fiasco nearly bankrupted the team in 2010. Now, for the first time since those dark days, Liverpool have a chance to get their pride back -- and to take home a shiny trophy along with it.
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