This is us and we are the champions

PETALING JAYA: And then everything was red. Including those marks on the arm that Liverpool supporters still have today from pinching themselves to check that it really happened.

Champions at last; deservedly, commandingly, and at times thrillingly.

After the victory over Crystal Palace last week Juergen Klopp spoke like a proud father of the boys that he’d nurtured from doubters to believers.

“I cannot remember a 4-0 after 80 minutes and four players chasing a ball like it’s the only ball left on this planet. This is us.”

The us that he has created is carved in his own image: intense, relentless, and confident.

When Klopp arrived at Anfield, Liverpool fans knew he was very good; we didn’t appreciate then just how special he is.

This is his team and his triumph. This is his club now.

Of the first team selection he made for Liverpool – away at Spurs in October 2015 – not a single one of those players started against Palace.

It’s hard to think of money better spent in recent times in football than Klopp’s signings since arriving in England: Mo Salah, Sadio Mane, Fabinho, Alisson, Virgil van Dijk, and Andy Robertson.

There are three key things that a manager has to get right – transfers, team selections, and tactics.

Klopp has excelled at all of these and has transformed his squad from not even nearly men to the near invincibles that they are today.

Klopp is driven, demanding, and decisive but he is also fundamentally a modest man.

His emotional victory speech was all about others, the “us” rather than himself.

He knows the importance of his coaching and backroom staff, while the generous credit he gave went mostly to his players.

He also has a firm grasp of history and tradition.

The heights that he has taken Liverpool to have been made possible by standing on the shoulders of giants; legends such as Steven Gerrard and Kenny Dalglish, who carried the club in more challenging times.

Memories tend to be short among football fans but history weighs a lot and thirty years is a long wait.

The emotion of the past few days has built up over many years and it has been released in relief as much as joy. The wave of emotion has swept around the world.

Football is truly the global as well as the beautiful game.

I wore my Liverpool top on Friday and as I took a lunchtime stroll in Kuala Lumpur, many others had chosen the same outfit.

There were nods and waves of acknowledgement, a celebration shared among strangers.

Some have argued, mostly in bitterness it seems to me, that the title should come with an asterisk, concluded in empty stadiums following a three month suspension of the league.

Klopp’s response? “Yes. Do it. Because it is the most difficult season ever.”

This is him, and he is a champion.

And we Liverpool fans are all grateful to him that now, “this is us”.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Star