Incredibly, there is debate over whether Liverpool’s season was successful after their ultimate failure in the Premier League and Champions League.
Their 1 – 0 Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid punctuates a bitter end to a season which promised so much – promised everything.
When you’ve had the quadruple dangled in front of you, when it was still a possibility until a week and a half ago, finishing the season with only the League and F.A Cups does feel disappointing.
Although they didn’t win the quadruple, Liverpool still achieved remarkable things this year. They’ve played in every possible game an English team can play over a season. They were in the running to win every competition they played in until the final game in each one.
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Their greatest achievement, and not just this year but over the past five, has been to make English football seem more competitive than it is. The Premier League is the best league in the world, but it isn’t competitive.
If it hadn’t been for Liverpool recently, Manchester City would win the league by 20 points every year and we would have a situation like Ligue 1, the Bundesliga and Serie A.
With ‘new money’ like Chelsea, City, PSG and now Newcastle such a prevalent force in the game, the ‘old money’ teams are reevaluating what it means to be successful. Just look at the gradual humbling of Arsenal fans over the last decade.
When Arsenal were still qualifying for the Champions League every year, they were bored of it. It was an affront to their perception of their own prestige to spend a season competing for fourth place.
Now, Arsenal fans have just experienced their most exciting season in years because they were in the mix right up until the final day of the season – for fourth place.
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The reality for teams like Arsenal, Spurs and even Manchester United is that the level of Manchester City is unattainable. Liverpool, as long as they keep getting everything right, are also untouchable. That means a league title is out the window. It means finishing higher than third is out the window.
When Liverpool have been almost perfect for four years and have only one title to show for it, when third place is the highest most teams can finish in the table, when six teams are competing for the two remaining Champions League places, we can no longer measure success with trophies.
In a competitive landscape which is nothing more than a grotesque corporate pantomime, Liverpool made us all dream. I’d say that’s successful.
