Everything and Nothing All at Once

“If there is only 1% chance, I would like to give it a try,” a calm and upbeat Jürgen Klopp said on Tuesday afternoon, a sort of late-arriving Groundhog Day for Liverpool Football Club. An impossible task in Europe, against a Spanish giant. Didn’t we already see this movie?

Casting odds, history, and the whims of fate aside for a moment, this much is true: Liverpool play what is now (and could remain so, depending on the twists and turns of the next ten weeks) the biggest game of the year.

Even if the top four race does boil down to a grind, to a result against Spurs or Brentford, a late point or even goal differential — the difference between Wednesdays in Munich or Thursdays in Dagestan or wherever — surely a midweek Champions League knockout game against just about anyone has more immediate dramatic potential.

And lo, it is not just anyone. It’s Real-freaking-Madrid — the same Blancos who have absolutely owned us five games and five years running now — in the last meaningful midweek game for at least six months and quite possibly much longer than that. At the Bernabeu. With a three-goal lead in the tie, after the absolute disaster of three weeks ago.

What's the point? Fair question. “Real Madrid haven’t lost a game by three-plus goals since last March against Barcelona in La Liga,” the devious imps whisper in our ears. 

This is the context in which we can juggle the unloaded baggage of the past, the weight of present expectations, and the dread of an uncertain future.

But like mama said, one meal at a time.

For most, the challenge is to think about this fixture without immediately reverting to 2019, the last time Liverpool played a big club from Spain facing insurmountable odds. Never Give Up. Corner Taken Quickly. Andrew Robertson getting the better of Leo Messi, then getting hurt in order to make way for the unlikeliest of heroes. In truth, 4-0 at Anfield has about as much relevance to the task at hand as 1-3 to Zizou, Benzema, and Gareth Bale in Kyiv or 0-1 at Bournemouth or 7-0 over United. Or 3-3 to Carlo Ancelotti's Milan, as long as we're revisiting ancient history.

We have a different side now, the side has a different challenge, and after the whipsaw ride of the past few weeks, we are within our right to demand which version of ourselves shows up to the ground. And what sort of midfield and shape we take, with Henderson out — Captain Virgil speaking — and our Spanish wunderkid Bajcetic banged up for what could be a while. 

Ancelotti. That nefarious magician was probably onto something more than typical pregame mind-games when he insisted, against common logic and reason, that Real have the trickier assignment. “Liverpool have to come full-on, to get the best they can from the first minute to the last, no matter what happens,” he said.

He’s mostly right. Liverpool have to score a bag of goals and not concede. Liverpool have to be something close to absolutely flawless.

Here’s where he is wrong: Liverpool can do everything right for 90 minutes, for 95 minutes. They can create, out of absolutely nothing, a glimmer of forlorn hope before falling victim to another Madrid magic trick, becoming just another minor antagonist in someone else’s heroic drama.

So as a fan, what do you do? You wake up, you make the coffee, and you revel in the fact that it is mid-March and you have a meaningful game against one of Liverpool Football Club’s most meaningful opponents. The likelier the disappointment, the more profound the potential joy. Liverpool can run out on a storied ground against a storied club with nothing to lose.

So long as we’re discussing sorcery, might as well mention: It’s the Ides of March. Stranger shit has happened, to everyone present.

"We have nothing to lose and that is better than when you have everything to lose,” Jurgen Klopp said, before skipping out of his press conference like a schoolkid at the final bell. 

Here's to stranger things. What else is there?