{"id":230301,"date":"2020-06-26T17:53:24","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T16:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=230301"},"modified":"2020-06-26T17:54:40","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T16:54:40","slug":"more-than-just-football-media-hail-klopp-and-liverpools-title-the-guardian-nigeria-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=230301","title":{"rendered":"‘More than just football’, media hail Klopp and Liverpool’s title \u2014 The Guardian Nigeria News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Liverpool players line up to pay their respects for Remembrance Day ahead of the English Premier League football match (Photo: AFP\/Paul Ellis)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After Liverpool players and fans celebrated a first league title in 30 years long into the night, Friday\u2019s headlines hailed a historic triumph for Jurgen Klopp\u2019s all-conquering squad.<\/p>\n

German coach Klopp won universal praise for his transformation of the club since taking charge five years ago.<\/p>\n

Liverpool have not just won the league, but are on course to rewrite the record books.<\/p>\n

Clinching the title with seven games to spare has never been done before and Manchester City\u2019s record 100 points tally and 19-point winning margin from two seasons ago are under threat.<\/p>\n

Relief on Merseyside was all the greater after a three-month delay to the Premier League season due to coronavirus.<\/p>\n

The Guardian\u2019s Barney Ronay said the title win was an \u201cannihilation\u201d and a culmination of 18 months of the players \u201cplaying through a kind of fury.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDeath, plague and economic collapse may have stalked the land, puncturing sport\u2019s ability to pretend the rest of the world is simply a subplot,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut sport has many functions beyond simply flag-waving and Liverpool\u2019s success will be deeply felt at a club where, as with every other club, football has always been a bit more than just football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ronay says Liverpool\u2019s players were on another level to their rivals, like the bully in the school playground.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom late summer into spring they seemed to be operating to a different set of physical laws,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarching the Premier League around in a headlock, ruffling its hair, flicking its ears.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Mail hailed the connection between Klopp and his adopted city.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the start, he and Liverpool felt made for each other,\u201d wrote Martin Samuel. \u201cHe got the club, he got the city, he got its people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klopp already delivered on his promise to win a trophy inside his first four years in charge with the Champions League last season.<\/p>\n

However, The Times highlighted the importance of restoring domestic dominance, despite Liverpool\u2019s rich European history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something about domestic dominance that brings a deeper, richer sense of pride,\u201d said Matt Dickinson.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps you can see it in the Museum of Liverpool where you walk up the stairs and see a big sign proclaiming \u2018The People\u2019s Republic\u2019. Or in the shop where they sell Scouse passports.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in the booing of the national anthem whenever Liverpool play at Wembley, declaring a sense of separatism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sun is not welcomed in Liverpool with the tabloid banned from sale owing to their coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy which saw 96 supporters killed in 1989.<\/p>\n

However, even they paid due homage to Klopp and his team\u2019s style of play.<\/p>\n

\u201cJurgen Klopp\u2019s swashbuckling side have enjoyed the most dominant campaign in the history of the English top flight,\u201d it purred.<\/p>\n

On Twitter former players exchanged banter with former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher photo-shopping fellow Sky pundit and Manchester United great Gary Neville in a Liverpool shirt with a bottle of champagne.<\/p>\n

Neville had joked earlier in the season that he would have to move to Papua New Guinea if Liverpool\u2019s long wait came to an end.<\/p>\n

Sky posted a spoof video on Twitter of pundits trying to chase down Neville as he boarded a plane to the south Pacific island.<\/p>\n

Former England cricket star Kevin Pietersen, never one to shirk either controversy or publicity, also stirred the pot on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiverpool winning the PL couldn\u2019t have come at a better time \u2014 when there\u2019s no crowds & zero interest!\u201d<\/p>\n

The manner in which the Liverpool fans celebrated on Thursday was a form of riposte.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liverpool players line up to pay their respects for Remembrance Day ahead of the English Premier League football match (Photo: AFP\/Paul Ellis) After Liverpool players and fans celebrated a first league title in 30 years long into the night, Friday\u2019s headlines hailed a historic triumph for Jurgen Klopp\u2019s all-conquering squad. German coach Klopp won universal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[9512,12880,3367],"class_list":["post-230301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-epl","tag-klopp","tag-liverpool"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=230301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/230302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=230301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=230301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=230301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}