Saturday.
Liverpool always kicked off early, the local weather conditions had long since made that a tradition.
By just after one in the afternoon, with still an hour before Liverpool's kick-off against Fulham, Anfield was already swamped in red.
The sky pressed down, grey and low, a fine rain falling steadily with a cold edge to it, the deep chill of late autumn. One gust and you pulled your coat tighter without thinking about it.
None of it put a dent in the supporters' enthusiasm. If anything, the rain and the cold only fed the fierce, particular electricity that charged Anfield on a home matchday.
Outside the ground, fans in red shirts spilled along the streets in clusters, club scarves wrapped around necks, waterproof caps pulled low, voices already raised in conversation. Last week's draw against Arsenal had sent a charge of optimism running through the fan base, and it hadn't died down yet.
In some ways, you could say the two clubs were old companions in suffering.
Before the season started, the prevailing wisdom had run something like this: Arsenal hadn't won a trophy in seven years, surviving on the proceeds of selling their captain every summer, their graceful football was a distant memory.
Liverpool, once the dominant force in English football, had long since been eclipsed by United; even Gerrard was nearing the end, with no heir apparent, and the great history of the club had become a stick other fans beat them with.
And then the season had started. Both clubs had surprised almost everyone, and their fans felt something they hadn't felt in a while: genuine hope.
The Liverpool fans who were streaming into Anfield now had fire in their eyes.
No matter how bad things get—at least they've been worse than this.
"Even in a downpour, there's nowhere I'd rather be," a white-haired old fan laughed, nudging the younger man beside him. "New owners, Klopp in the dugout, and Julien on the pitch, there's something different about this Liverpool. This season, for the first time in a long time, I actually believe."
Along the streets, fans clutched steaming cups of coffee, breath misting in the cold, singing You'll Never Walk Alone in rounds that swelled and faded and rose again through the rain.
At a quarter to two, the players came out for the warm-up. When Julien, Gerrard, and the other first-team regulars appeared on the turf, the ground erupted. Thousands on their feet were clapping, calling out, the sound was washing over the pitch in waves.
Inside the stadium, the PA lifted: the opening notes of You'll Never Walk Alone.
All across Anfield, supporters rose and joined in, voices locked together, clean and enormous, cutting through the patter of rain and the wind coming off the Mersey. Arms draped around strangers' shoulders, swaying gently, everyone waiting for the match to begin.
Before kick-off, the teams observed a moment of silence in honor of fallen soldiers, poppies sewn to the sleeves of every shirt.
In the early days, these tributes had mattered to people in a way that felt personal. The Hillsborough scarves designed by Liverpool and Everton supporters in 1989 were proof of that—a spontaneous act of communal mourning, almost without parallel in football.
Over the decades, though, the rituals had multiplied and grown more remote. In the 1990s, stadium commemorations had largely been organized from above, reserved for former players, held only at the clubs directly involved.
Then the twenty-first century arrived, and it seemed that every public tragedy, every notable death, however tangentially connected to football required a minute of silence before kick-off.
All matches had observed the anniversary of 9/11 in 2001. In 2004, games paused for Ken Bigley, executed by militants in Afghanistan; for the South Asian tsunami victims; for the radio DJ John Peel and for Pope John Paul II.
By 2007, when Phil O'Donnell who had played for Celtic and Sheffield Wednesday, not a household name by any measure collapsed and died on the pitch, the practice of holding widespread official silences had become well-established.
At the time, Nottingham Forest manager Colin Calderwood had said publicly: "I don't think every misfortune should be marked this way. Some things should be allowed to remain private."
Six years on, nothing had changed.
The Economist had summarized the situation with typical acidity, "These days, it seems that before every match, players cluster in the center circle to remember someone—though fewer and fewer people in the stands have the faintest idea who."
And so it was at Anfield that afternoon. The majority of those present couldn't have told you what the silence was for. Their minds were elsewhere entirely—on the match.
When the clock ticked to two p.m., the noise inside Anfield reached a crescendo.
The referee's whistle sang out.
The match began.
"Liverpool! Liverpool! LIVERPOOL!"
The chants went up, each wave louder than the last.
Anfield had barely settled when Liverpool announced their intentions with a ferocious high press that surged forward like a tide. From striker to sweeper, the entire team pushed up — the defensive line shunted deep into Fulham's half.
A bold gamble.
It paid off immediately.
Martin Jol had set his side up in a 4-4-1-1 formation, but under Liverpool's relentless pressure the shape collapsed almost instantly.
The attacking midfielder Kasami was forced to retreat into midfield, where he squeezed alongside the four already there, creating an improvised five-man defensive screen. The team had effectively become a 4-5-1 without anyone choosing to make it so.
Even that offered Fulham little comfort. Their players could barely string a pass together. Every time a defender tried to find a midfielder, a red shirt seemed to arrive from nowhere to cut the line. When a midfielder did get on the ball, he had a fraction of a second before Liverpool's press descended and the result was either a panicked clearance or a lost possession.
The loneliest figure on the pitch was Fulham's chief threat, Berbatov. The Bulgarian was stranded at the top of the field, receiving no support at all.
Every time he tried to drop deep to collect the ball, Gerrard or Henderson immediately shepherded him away from the play. When he stayed high and waited, Liverpool's center-backs held their ground and denied him the space to turn.
Eight minutes in, Berbatov finally got a touch attempting to receive the ball in midfield and spin away. Agger had read it perfectly. He stepped in cleanly, ball won, possession turned over in an instant.
Anfield let out a long, contemptuous boo. Berbatov's history with Liverpool fans was long and poisonous—that hat-trick he'd scored for United against the Reds had lodged itself in the fan's memory and refused to leave.
Julien had seen enough of Berbatov in highlights packages to know the truth about him: a player who feasted on lower opposition, yes but one who had a habit of disappearing when the game was properly competitive.
He was imposing on paper: good in the air, technical on the ground, strong enough when he wanted to be, a decent range of passing and a reasonable long shot. But he didn't want to run. His work rate in matches was infamous. On bad days, he'd complete less than a kilometer of ground covered across ninety minutes.
A cut-price Ibrahimović for clubs that couldn't afford the real thing, mercurial when the mood took him, invisible when it didn't.
In the tenth minute, Liverpool launched a sustained assault. Julien, Suárez, Sturridge even Gerrard was arriving late from deep and all found shooting positions. Each attempt came agonizingly close, without finding the target.
The sequence kept Fulham pinned back, lunging and scrambling, utterly unable to mount a counter. Martin Jol paced the technical area, arms working, trying to shout his players into some kind of shape. His voice didn't carry far enough.
The Liverpool supporters grew louder with every passage of play.
"Liverpool! Liverpool!"
Everyone in the ground could see what was coming. Fulham were buckling. It was only a matter of time.
And then the fifteenth minute.
Gerrard picked the ball up in midfield and, rather than swinging it wide, played a firm, low pass into Julien's feet in the center of the pitch.
Two Fulham defenders were on him immediately in a double-cover, trying to squeeze him out.
Julien didn't check. He didn't look to lay it off. He dropped a shoulder, shifted his weight, and surged forward with a sudden burst; the first defender's balance was gone before he'd realized what had happened. Then a touch inside with the left, and Julien was through the gap between them, accelerating toward the Fulham penalty area.
Fulham's back line scrambled in to cover, and in doing so they opened up exactly the space they'd been trying to protect. Suárez had found the channel, timing his run to perfection.
Julien saw it as it happened. Without breaking stride, he clipped the ball with the outside of his right boot in a clever, precise diagonal that went between three Fulham shirts and broke into the small space to the right of the six-yard box.
Suárez was already there. He received the ball with his back to goal, didn't attempt to control it or turn; he simply raised his right heel and let it deflect off with a casual flick that redirected the ball into the far corner of the net.
Dutch keeper Stekelenburg had positioned himself to cover the near post. The ball ended up in the opposite corner. He watched it go in and could not quite believe the instance of what had just occurred.
1–0. Liverpool.
Suárez sprinted toward the touchline in a blur, fingers pointing into the shape of two pistols, shaking his arms in wild celebration. He ran at the advertising boards and punched the air, then rolled back to embrace his teammates with open arms.
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