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The final whistle blew, and it was anticlimactic. Sure, the defense had kept their first league clean sheet in a couple of matches, but for what? Honestly, Alisson was two seconds away from dragging Klopp, Taffarel and himself into the attacking box so somebody could just score a godforsaken goal.
Every single odd was for Liverpool to win the match by a decent margin, to regain their place at the top of the table. But now the red trash from Manchester had a (slight) reason to brag and puff their chests and yap their filthy mouths off, because now Liverpool were a point behind Cannonballs—who they played next.
The performance hadn’t been all bad, for sure. The four defenders had done important work for the interceptions, and Endo had played well despite getting an early yellow. But the attack, including Nunez and Salah, had been wasteful with their chances, and Gravenberch had picked up an injury that would keep him in the treatment room for a while.
Yep, Alisson wasn’t going to be able to catch a break today. And, for once, it wasn’t for something he did; it was for his teammates, who clearly needed someone to step up and sort them out.
“You okay, man? Looks like you’re at war with yourself.”
Of course. Of course the opposition keeper had seen him overthinking from afar, even though the two had only spent exactly four hours and seventy-two minutes of both of their lives breathing the same air. It was the way things were that day.
“I’m…fine.” Alisson pushed his thoughts aside and shook Onana’s hand. “Those were some nice saves you made.”
“You too. Looks like your belief in me worked, huh?” Onana glanced towards the tunnel with a sigh. “I still can’t believe Diogo got sent off so quickly, though. The discipline in my team has gone down the flipping drain.”
Alisson was about to agree, but then he spotted Nunez out of the corner of his eye. Gakpo had his arm around him and was talking to him, but Nunez wasn't responding whatsoever.
“Sorry, Andre, but I have to go. Talk to you later?" Alisson' protective instincts flared up as soon as he saw the sheer disappointment on Nunez's face. "In the keepers' chat, I mean.”
“Yeah, I get it, captain's duties. I've got to go back, too, it was...nice, talking to you.”
Before Alisson could ask where Onana had got the idea that he was captain, the Cameroonian bolted away from the Liverpool touchline and towards an equally confused Varane. Alisson decided to drop it, sprinting into the tunnel and down the side that Nunez and Gakpo had gone through.
“Cody! Darwin!" Alisson skidded to a stop beside the two attackers, putting his arms around both of them. He opened his mouth, only to shut it when he realized that he had nothing to say. Normally, when one of his teammates was down after a match, he'd find something good that happened to praise them about. Problem was, any positive in this match for the attackers would have to be entirely false. For a while, Alisson just walked along Gakpo and Nunez, not knowing what to do.
Finally, he came up with something that was somewhat positive. "We're still within touching distance of the top of the table."
"And what for?! We were top of the table, all we needed to do was beat the red pieces of crap. And I couldn't even put the ball in the goddamn net." Nunez ripped off his glove and threw it at the wall. He slumped down to the ground, his head in his hands. "What kind of striker can't do that? Bobby would've scored for us, I'm sure of it. Mírame. ¡MÍRAME! Qué excusa más patética la de un delantero.”
"No, Darwin. No, no, no." Alisson bent over and took Nunez's hand, ignoring how his sore muscles screamed at him not to. He would really need a soak in the ice baths after this. "Can you look at me, chiquito ?"
"Yeah, look up, Darwin," Gakpo echoed, unsure of what to say. Instead of bending, he sat next to Nunez.
"Por favor, don't baby me. I already know I let everyone down, I've been letting us down for the past ten matches." Nunez looked up at his teammates, his face a mix of disappointment and frustration. He hung his head in shame, staring down at the tiles. "Leave the kind words for those who deserve it, not me. I'm the one who should be apologizing—”
“Darwin, listen to me. First of all, you haven't let the team down. You missed shots, yes, but it would be immensely unfair to blame you for the problems that the whole team still has to sort out.” Alisson placed special emphasis on the last part, taking a seat next to Nunez. “Secondly, you're our friend, and more importantly, you're a human being. You deserve to be comforted when you need it, and right now you need a hug. That extends to you too, Cody, okay?”
“The media won’t think so.” Nunez's voice was choked up, and he still didn't look up at either of them. "They're already…saying things. They say I’m no good as 9.”
"But we know how hard you try, and what you can work on. We don't care what anyone else says. We need you to know that." Gakpo hugged Nunez, ruffling the hair that was now loose from his usual man bun. "And it's not all bad. Vic and the rest of the defense did wonderfully today. And there have been times that the attack was great, but the defense was total crap. No offense to you, Ali.”
“The truth isn’t offensive, Cody.” Alisson hugged Gakpo and Nunez at the same time, a feat that wasn’t too hard due to their slight builds. “You both need to improve some things, and so do Lucho and Mo. But we still love you nonetheless.”
Nunez and Gakpo didn’t say anything as they melted into the hug, the tension radiating off them like cold air from an ice cube. Alisson himself started to feel more relaxed, until he felt his own eyes start to grow heavy.
“Situation solved!” Logos high-fived Pathos, adjusting his ice-blue leaf jacket. Usually Logos didn’t agree with Pathos, especially since Pathos was the one who usually ran the control center, but this was an exception. “The truth is out, and the logic has been spread.”
Pathos nodded, spinning around in the command chair. “And nobody’s upset anymore, and we didn’t insult anybody. Now we can be at peace.”
“Um, guys?” Ethos pointed to the red, flashing button labeled ANXIETY. “We still have to get this turned off.”
Logos glanced at the button and shrugged. “Honestly, when doesn’t that button flash red and sound like a siren?”
Before either Ethos or Pathos could respond, a siren blared loudly. Logos jumped to the control panel, noticing that the VISUAL INPUT button was lightened once again.
“He’s waking up! To your positions, everyone, TO YOUR POSITIONS!!!”
“Ali!”
Alisson’ eyes flew open at the slight prodding on his arm. “What in the— Ryan ?! That hurts, you know.”
“Sorry, I just came back from interviews and I found you here, out like a light.” Gravenberch chuckled, although Alisson noticed how forced it was. “The boss says it’s time for our meeting. Virgil freaked out when we couldn’t find you, though—something about a broken mirror.”
“Never mind that, that’s just one of Virgil’s…expressions. How’s your leg?” Alisson wasn’t quite ready to confront that memory just yet. Plus, even if he was, Gravenberch was far too innocent to burden with such a story.
“It still hurts. Cody’s probably going to dunk me in an ice bath when the boss is done. Now come on, let’s go!”
“Careful! You’re going to make your hamstring worse.” But Alisson let Gravenberch pull him off the floor and away to the locker room.
In the locker room, it wasn’t much louder. Most of their teammates were quiet, even the more talkative ones. Alisson made a beeline for Van Dijk’s locker and crashed right next to the captain, who barely responded.
“You okay?” Van Dijk wasn’t talkative, at least compared to some of their teammates. But he was never unresponsive.
Van Dijk finally seemed to realize that Alisson was there, flashing a tired half-smile. “I’m fine.”
“You’re tired.”
“Not the first time this season.”
“Boys! Settle down, please.” Klopp suddenly appeared from nowhere, as was his custom.
The room was already quiet, but one could feel the energy shifting from scattered, random thoughts towards the front. Everyone immediately fell silent, their attention focused on Klopp. He scanned the room, his gaze lingering on each player in turn. Finally, he spoke.
"I understand that some of us don't feel the best about our performance today, no? Darwin, I'm looking at you. I can see you self-persecuting from a mile away."
Nunez nearly jumped out of his seat, but managed to get out an awkward salute before wringing his hands together again. “I-I’m not doing whatever you said I am.”
“No, Darwin. Don’t even try to hide it. I know, we didn’t play the best today.” Klopp glanced around the room, looking every one of them in the eye. “But let me reiterate: this. Is. Not. Your. Fault. It’s everybody’s fault, or it’s nobody’s. We win as a team, and we lose as a team, and we also draw as a team.
“Right now, I don’t want you to think of how we played today. I want you to think of how we can play better tomorrow. We’ve been through worse before and we’ve always come out stronger, remember that. Okay?"
"Okay," most of the players mumbled anemically. Nobody really seemed convinced, until somebody cleared his throat and began to speak. It was, to everybody's surprise, Lijnders.
"Alright, listen up everyone! Look at my jumper." He gestured to himself, then his garish, graphic Christmas sweater. "Can somebody read this for me? Virgil, go ahead and read it for me."
Van Dijk’s eyes scanned over the words easily, although he hesitated before revealing what he'd read. "Um…it says 'I am utter crap'."
Nobody even chuckled at that.
“Thank you, Virgil. Now, if I wear this sweater, do you think I'm going to believe what it says? Of course it does, because I keep telling myself over and over again. I may not be able to see it with my eyes, but I can feel the truth in my soul.”
Lijnders pulled the sweater off him, tossing it into the rubbish bin on the other side of the room.
“So if just wearing a sweater that says 'I am utter crap’ is going to make me feel and act like it, then what the heck is all of yous cursing and trashing yourselves gonna do?! You’re going to start playing like the rubbish you believe you are! I don’t care if everybody in the Daily Mail, or Mirror, or god forbid the S-asterisk-N says it, y’all should be caring about my opinion! And I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU ARE ALL RUBBISH! YOU ARE ALL AMAZING PEOPLE AND YOU DESERVE YOU HEAR IT!!!!”
He finally breathed, flopping against the locker to catch his breath. “Sorry, Jurgen, just needed to get that off my chest. Continue.”
“What do you mean, sorry? That was the best team talk I’ve heard since Jesse and I watched Ted Lasso last week, you put everything into that.” Klopp took Lijnders’ hand and lifted it into the air as if he’d just won a wrestling match. “What Pep said, boys. You don’t need to say it out loud, but say this to yourself: ‘the energy of the team said that I’m great’. And everyone here thinks that you’re amazing. Perfect, no, but you are all wonderful. Now, can I hear a hell yeah?”
The others exchanged glances, before surging from their seats towards their boss and vice-boss and engulfing them in a group hug.
“ Hell yeah!”