I remember dates—birthdays, anniversaries, important historical events. I never forget them. In my life there are few dates more important than the 18th of March 2004. It was the day I met God. “I’ll give the talk,” I said, “as long as you get John Barnes to come to it.” They offered, instead, to get me tickets to the Liverpool–Wolves game. “Sorry,” I replied. I would eventually revise that position, but not until later. Two nights before I was due to give the talk at Liverpool John Moores University, just after having given a talk at the University...

Iam Liverpool fundamentalist. I believe in God, John Barnes, and God’s Own Son, Steven Gerrard. I believe in the Holy Trinity of Managers: Bob Paisley, Bill Shankly, and Kenny Dalglish.

I believe in the Communion of Saints: Graeme Souness, Michael Owen, Ian St. John (how much more saintly than that can you get, anyway?), Ian Callaghan, Ray Kennedy, Steve McMahon, Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson, Terry McDermott, Ian Rush, Jan Molby, Alan Kennedy, both Phils—Neal and Thompson, John Aldridge, Peter Beardsley, Steve MacManaman, Jamie Carragher …

In my perfect world, I would abandon my job as an academic to walk...

Argentine victory in the World Cup is always tainted. Diego Maradona’s shenanigans in 1986, at the World Cup hosted by Mexico, simply provided the second installment of the Argentine story. The 1986 Argentine victory, the second for “Los Celestes” (“the Heavenly Ones”), was marred, as every England supporter will quickly concur, by that peculiar disease that strikes only in the heat of athletic battle: the referee’s blindness, willful or otherwise. Diego Maradona, a massive talent, a massive abuser of talent and drugs, a man who rarely made contact with the word “discipline,” a player who appalled at least as much...

Spain has never been a nation. It has always been a weak state, governed, sometimes more precariously than others, from the Castilian center of Madrid. Spain contains within its geographical borders a collection ofnacionesdetermined to be independent even as they reluctantly accepted the status ofcomunidades autónomas. Catalans, Basques, Galicians, Andalusians, all constantly chafe against the Castilian bit, against a weak Castilian state struggling to hold Spain together in the face of regular challenges. These national ambitions have articulated themselves repeatedly across the centuries. This desire to be freed from Castilian rule can be heard in the “anti-Madridismo”...

He is the king of two-touch. Trapping neatly, passing swiftly, accurately. Economy in brilliance. He has surveyed the entire field completely, astutely, a long time—or so it seems—before he actually receives the ball. Because of this, he knows exactly what he is going to do before the ball arrives. It’s always the same, and yet we Liverpool fans, because we only got acquainted with him in August 2004, still fi nd ourselves marveling every time he does it. With exppert control, he releases the simple, accurate pass, opening up what seems like acres of space for his Liverpool...

I held up four fingers. That silenced him, a man in his mid- to late fifties, white, with a certain raffishness that bordered on charm. He was seated at an outside table of a cafe, smoking, his weather-beaten face suggesting that life had seldom been easy. It was the red bag, with the city’s famous bird emblazoned on it, that prompted him to speak directly to me, a perfect stranger. Under different circumstances, I might have considered myself accosted. Not here. My friend David Andrews, who is English and a Fulham fan, suggested to me that this “interaction could have...

Before Karol Józef Wojtyla was ordained a priest, and long before he became the first non-Italian pope since (the Dutch) Adrian VI in the 1520s, John Paul II was—in addition to being a thespian—a footballer. According to rumor, he was an amateur goalkeeper in his native Poland. There may be some truth, then, to the Vatican stories that he was a fan of Liverpool FC. After all, it was a perfectly logical choice: the Liverpool goalie for the 2004–2005 Champions League season, Jerzy Dudek, is a Pole and an observant Catholic. Dudek is reported to have had...

This century, no one does finals like us. Since 2001, Liverpool has played eight and won all but two. And the two we lost were, when all is said and done, of little consequence. Minor affairs, really, the least important trophy in English professional football: the Worthington Cup, losses to Chelsea and Manchester United. But all those finals have been memorable. None more so, of course, than Istanbul, that Champions League final for the Ages of which I spoke earlier. And none so exhausting as the 2001 Treble wins.

This string of twenty-first-century finals started and ended (to this date)...