Liverpool FC Forum

[Leonmc0708]

This has been posted on RAWK, and originally filched from a guy known as Fabulous~Fadz (modest guy by all accounts) on the official joke of a forum.

It does sound like a well written sermon from a priest, but it makes intresting reading, and the little bit about Luis Garcia and players adapting to him in the same way he is adapting to the Premiership is certainly food for thought.

I would like it if the negative posters stayed out of this thread; we have more than enough of that here.
I'll start this with a little story about my past. When I was 13 I came home from boarding school after the 1st term to find a jig-saw puzzle there. I'd never seen it before and the box had been lost so I didn't know what the final picture was. None of my brothers or cousins was there so I couldn't ask anyone what it was. Regardless, to pass away the time, I got working on it and placed each piece wherever it would fit.

Some pieces were colorful and were appealing to the eye even though I didn't know where to put them as yet, others were rather dull grey, or green, or just black. These pieces proved to be the hardest to work with. With the others, I had some idea of what I was working on, this here is a boot, this is a belt, this is an arm, but with the dull or single color ones, all I could do was place them where they could fit.

This process of looking at pieces and trying to figure them out continued for about 3 hours at the end of which, I had put together a beautiful picture of Superman in space with the planets behind him in the back ground. The gray parts turned out to be parts of some of the planets, some of the black parts were just darkness in space, and the others were parts of his cape covered in shadow. They were necessary for the completion of the big picture.

What does a Superman jig-saw puzzle have to do with LFC you may wonder? Bear with me a moment while I draw some parallels. Rafa at LFC represents me, coming home from Boarding school and finding a jig-saw puzzle. The only difference between us is that he knows what the picture is supposed to be. The fans in a way are lookers on who have not seen what the final picture is supposed to be but know that there is a jig-saw puzzle that this 13 year old kid (Rafa) is working with.

Some of the pieces look attractive and colorful and we can already tell what they are just by looking, this is part of a boot (a reliable goal keeper to give us more options - Pepe Reina). This is part of a belt (a holding midfielder, or a defensive one that will fight for every ball we lose - Momo Sissoko). I'm sure you see what I'm getting at now.

Some pieces are just dull to look at; just plain gray, green or black. You cannot tell just by looking what they are supposed to be or where they fit in the big picture and normally have to wait until a larger part of the picture has been made and their position and purpose becomes more apparent.

Some of our old and new players are like that; just a plain, dull and gray piece. Bolo Zenden for instance, not that he is dull and gray. But a lot of fans have not given him his chance and are already slating Rafa for having signed him unnecessarily. Peter Crouch; I could not believe how much criticism he got before he even played a single match for the reds, and what made this worse was that the criticism was coming from people purporting to be Liverpool fans, and as expected, some sections of the media.

One article I read talking about LFC a few days after Crouch was signed said something like this: "Because they occupy a curious position - are they the fifth best side in England or Europe's top team? The former would court Peter Crouch; the latter would ignore the beanpole forward. Their problems in the Premiership appear to have prompted a bid for the Southampton striker, coupled with Feyenoord's reluctance to sell Dirk Kuijt."

Such was the treatment we got from all sectors. Liverpool it seems can do nothing right. Why would we waste £7 million pounds on this unproven striker? There were plenty we could have tried for as European champions, Shevchenko I heard someone say; the likes of Wayne Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimovich etc. Certainly we had the pulling power, most people would want to play for the champions of Europe, but no, we had to go for Peter Crouch and no-one could understand why; including myself.

But Rafa is the manager, and I'm just one of millions of LFC fans so I was quiet. Rafa sees the squad everyday; I get to see them on match days for 90 minutes and victory parades only. Rafa puts players on the bench for a reason and all I can say is why isn't Zenden playing, or why is Riise not starting at left back since Traore is injured? Regardless of what I think, Rafa sees the entire squad every day. About Riise not starting, young Stephen Warnock has received an England call up. This must mean Rafa knows what he is doing. Rafa is the one who has seen what the final picture is supposed to be, and I'm just an onlooker who can see the broken pieces.

I can see some of the colorful ones, Shevchenko, Kuijt, Solano and other beautiful pieces that would look good in our squad. But these are pieces of different puzzles, not the one Rafa is working with. So no matter how good they are, they won't fit in our puzzle. We need those dull gray pieces, the plain green ones, and the pitch black ones.

A few games into the season and somehow the lame Liverpool Football Club that spent millions on mediocre players is now looking strong, to an extent. Where I live, and in some media articles, no one gave the reds a chance against Betis, but look at what happened. People predicted a Manchester United win; they ended the whole match with about 2 attempts at goal; the whole match. That was about 95 minutes of football including stoppage time, and the colorful pieces Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Wayne Rooney, Paul Scholes, Cristiano Ronaldo, Roy Keane, Rio Ferdinand, Alan Smith et. al. could only muster 2 attempts at goal. The average team scores about 25% of its chances, so mathematically they had no chance of scoring in that match; against the crippled Liverpool that is using a lower quality of players. Manchester has world class, and Liverpool is just, well average.

World class is made; no one was born world class. There is development for people to go through. That's what we are doing, Developing. I found one post on the fans forum that says: "But surely Rafa was ripped off by Barca & Real £6.5m each for Garcia & a cup-tied unfit Moro, subsequently £8m for a keeper & £7.5m for a goalpost." I found this both funny and unfortunate. Someone is judging Rafa's abilities after having looked at the dull pieces.

After a few games, we can say this now, Peter crouch is not just a pitch black piece of the puzzle anymore. We no longer have to wonder why in the world we bought a goalpost. This is a shifting goal post; it will make it easier for us to score. No one can doubt that the Crouching tiger can hold his own on the ground. Rio Ferdinand can testify to that. Defenders struggle with him, and he has great vision. Maybe it's because of his high vantage point, but he links with the others well.

Bolo Zenden is not just a gray piece either; he has excellent crosses, and regularly gets the ball into the box. He might not be the best left winger in the world, but the best would be too big (both in the head and metaphorically) to fit in our puzzle. Zenden fits in the puzzle well. He is still getting flack from some 'Liverpool Fans' but he is good and we can already see why Rafa signed him.

Garcia: it is always difficult for me to talk about him in such situations because he is my favorite player. But he is not one of the dull pieces. He has such vision and skill, clever little player. At times he is blamed for loss of possession but I think that others are not yet used to a player of his style, he passes the ball in ways that get me, a spectator, confused sometimes. What you get is one player running forward when a clever flick was supposed to come to him and the ball is left in no man's land. Funny we all sing Luis Garcia drinks Sangria when he scores. How many people put their thumbs in their mouths when he scores? As usual, people needed someone to criticize and unfortunately for Lou, some of the fans picked him.

Then there's the issue of no goals. We don't have a porous defense for one. There will be no point being like Real Madrid, scoring 2 and conceding 3. Yes defenders don't score goals but strikers don't stop the opposition from scoring. Rafa is working on his puzzle. I started mine from the bottom, those were the pieces easier to identify and work with. I assembled some of them off the board because I could see how they fit together but not where they go on the board, I would then shift them to the board as soon as I saw where to put them. The bottom in this case is the defense. All good teams are hard to beat; they are hard to beat because of a solid defense. When Rafa works his way to the top of the board/pitch, the striking will work just as the midfield and defense are working now. The goals will fly in, and the critics will start saying something about our kit, or the color of the boots our team wears, because the puzzle will be complete, Liverpool will be superman, in space, with the planets (other teams) behind him in the background.

The young players, Antonio Barragan, Jack Hobbs, Godwin Antwi, Miki Roque, Ramon Calliste and Besian Idrizaj, are they plain green pieces? Yes they are. Green pastures. We can water and nourish them and with time, some, or all of them will have songs at the Kop. What do we do when Gerrard, Sámi, Carra, Didi and Nando retire? Go shopping again? No, let us grow our own stars; LFC will get its respect that way. We've almost always produced some legends. We can still continue to do so.

These are the other little pieces that we will begin to see with time. I didn't think Warnock would amount to anything until Rafa worked with him. To be honest I didn't think some players would get a chance or be of any use to us, I wasn't even interested in knowing the names of some of the squad players. I didn't know Zak Whitbread until he started appearing in cup matches last season. A friend was joking that Darren Potter is Harry Potter's younger brother. Because of what Rafa has done, I know everyone in the squad and most of the reserves squad as well. I'm confident that the ones that are still here are very good; otherwise Rafa would have offloaded them.

I cannot claim to know how the team will turn out in the near future; neither can I say I know when we will start beating everyone even though I hope it's the next game. I cannot claim that I know what Rafa is doing. All I know is that he is assembling pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. He has seen what he is supposed to build, all I have seen are the pieces he is working with, and that is not enough for me to say he is going in the wrong direction. Let us give him time to make Liverpool Football Club Superman again.

YNWA

An excellent read I am sure you will agree.

[66-1120597113]

Great read!!
And a very interesting way to look at things!

[redskye]

Sheer class. Great read and brought a tear to my eye.  Rafa is the cleverest manager in the premiership and will take us to the title.

[76-1115222408]

Looks like I might have to join RAWK then, because the majority of the good posts I see on these forums, have been copied and pasted from there!!!

Excellent read!!!

[Gareth G]

An awesome read that, we need more people like him on here.

[NiftyNeil]

Good one Leon.
I don't think Rafa is far from completing his jigsaw, just the top right hand corner, and maybe a nice colourful piece right at the top.

[ry_math]

  i cant be bothad to read all that!

[DrTNT]

Excellent post, a very interesting read and way to look at what Rafa is doing with the club.

[jonnymac1979]

i cant be bothad to read all that!

Why am I not surprised, Doofus?

Surely you're a member of the cack official site?

Bothad?? ?? ?? ??      

Thanks by the way Leon.  Good read.