Cape Town — “If you only find football great when you win, you should stay at home. You can give everything and still lose.”
These are the sage words of Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. He would have done well to recall them in the home dressing room at Anfield last Sunday.
His team - or “my boys” as he affectionately refers to them - once again gave it everything they had but for the second time in four seasons fell just one point shy of Manchester City.
Liverpool could virtually have done nothing more to win their second Premiership title. They accumulated 92 points. Lost just two matches all season. And dropped only four points since February.
ALSO READ: BBC apologises to fans after 'Manchester United are rubbish' gaffe
Inspirational striker Mohamed Salah claimed the Golden Boot, while goalkeeper Alisson Becker walked away with the Golden Glove award. In any other era the Reds would be celebrating a third successive Premiership title.
And this is why another famous Klopp quote should also be remembered at this time.
“If we are all only happy when we are winning, when your race finishes, then what life would that be?”
The title may have been raised in the blue half of Manchester on Sunday, but as a self-confessed Liverpool fanatic, this is surely the best time of our lives to be a Red.
This past season has been simply sensational. Winning two domestic Cups - the Carabao Cup and FA Cup - has helped maintain the spirit, but watching Klopp’s charges compete so gallantly in every competition has been spellbinding. They allowed us to dream about a virtually impossible quadruple.
The way everyone just kept going, week in, week out, game in, game out, meant that Klopp's Liverpool were fully deserving of the moniker “mentality monsters”.
At no point did they stop running, pressing, charging, attacking, defending. Even when two thirds - Sadio Mane and Salah - of the famous front trio were away on national duty at Afcon, going full throttle at each other in Cameroon, they maintained their momentum.
Up stepped Diogo Jota. In came Luis Diaz. The engine kept running. And the goals kept flying in.
Professional football is about winning. Nobody knows that better than Liverpool and Klopp.
But there is also a place to appreciate that City are deserved champions, especially after reversing a 2-0 deficit with three goals in the space of five minutes on a pulsating final day to keep their noses ahead in the title race.
Liverpool will go again. First on Saturday in their bid to overcome Spanish aristocrats Real Madrid to claim Uefa Champions League glory for the second time in three seasons.
And then again next season when they launch another league challenge like only they can.
We will be there again, cheering them on, because at Liverpool “You Never Walk Alone”, regardless of the outcome.
IOL Sport