Alex Schlüter will host the Champions League final for DAZN between FC Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur (live on DAZN from 20.30). But before that he looks back on the craziest football week of the year, on tears, evil looks and the pure happiness of a magical night in Anfield.
It’s this typical English greenkeeper look that the folder gives me before the game starts. With DAZN we have just taken our moderation position at Anfield Road and I switch my mobile phone to photo mode. Social media, important thing these days, is clear after all.
So I’m trying to get a really cool picture of the field where the semi-final return match between Liverpool and Barcelona will take place in a few minutes. I kneel above the ground, my mobile phone just above the turf – all I need to garnish the motif is the DAZN logo from the microphone, which I place on the sidelines.
It’s just that I’ve forgotten how sacred their football turf is to the British. It takes a blink of an eye for the Liverpool folder to remind me with austere words and a face with which it could easily guard Buckingham Palace during the day. “I’m sorry, really!” I apologize. Damn, social media’s overrated anyway.
Later in the evening the folder will be next to me again. He will briefly detach his gaze from the playing field and look at me – with a smile that tells so much about the most incredible football night in years. He’ll have tears in his eyes for all his happiness and enthusiasm. It’s crazy what football can do to you …
Well, I’m not exactly the most romantic guy in the world myself. There’s more than one woman who would confirm that emphatically. And yet I still get goose bumps with a few days distance when I go through the pictures of Anfield in my head.
The cheering players of Liverpool, the defeated hero Leo Messi, the ecstatic Reds fans. And it’s precisely this folder that fell out of its role as a strict security guard because of all the emotions. On the stands the celebration about the progress of the Reds became so wild that our expert Jonas Hummels got stuck in the elevator for minutes on the way to the playing field.
The reason why no TV viewer had to wonder why I moderated alone? At the same time, the entire stadium was shouting a shatteringly beautiful “You’ll never walk alone” and we simply held on to it with the cameras. There was nothing for us to talk about at that moment anyway.
As if we floodlight romantics hadn’t been spoiled enough after this game – it was madness in Amsterdam when Tottenham secured his place in the finals in the final seconds. It was the culmination of a week that reminded us with all its force why we love this sport so much.
Hand on football’s heart, it’s not every week. A season is long and every Anfield miracle is matched by at least five goalless draws in which I can discuss the “tactically valuable” with our experts in the post-analysis. But in the end, I guess that’s exactly what it is. You never know what you’ll get when you open the chocolate box at the beginning of a football evening.
Next Saturday the box will be particularly expensive. It says finale. Liverpool vs. Tottenham sounds like fine food, but it can still get tough. But it can also be the next magical night waiting for us. The conditions would be met on both sides: Tottenham, the chronically underestimated team that can still get the recognition it deserves at the end of the season without having to buy anything new, despite serious injury problems for Kane and Co.
On the other hand, the Reds, who lost only one game in the Premier League and still had to settle for second place. The Champions League title would make up for everything, especially Kloppo. His personal final score of six defeats in a row just screams for a happy ending – not even the authors of Game of Thrones would screw that up.
They have proven that both teams are capable of wonderful things. The Spurs in Amsterdam, Liverpool in Anfield. By the way, I finally took the photo of the playing field after all. Late in the evening, just before we left. The steward was still at his post, but he really tried hard to look the other way. In such a football night, even the most British of all law enforcement officers can turn a blind eye.
