Inside the sea of red: the meaning behind Liverpool's victory parade

There was no crowning glory for Liverpool in the end, but they still found a way to sign off the 2021/22 campaign in the best way imaginable.

There is no set formula for defining what constitutes a successful season in football. Trophies are the most clear-cut and universally acknowledged way of delivering success, but they are only one part of the equation. In any given season, most teams in the English football league only enter three competitions that they could theoretically win. A select few enter four, competing in one of three tiers of European football as well as the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup. 

If trophies were the only thing that mattered, the vast majority of football supporters would have very little reason to invest endless amounts of time, money and emotional and physical energy in following their team season after season. By boiling football down to silverware alone, we strip it of so much that makes it an integral part of millions of people’s lives. Like all team sports, it’s something which, at the most basic level, gives people something to look forward to – a means of escape from the strains and stresses of the daily grind. 

There is no intrinsic meaning to football; it’s what we make of it, and how it makes us feel, that really matters. 

Liverpool’s parade on Sunday afternoon wasn’t just a celebration to mark the club’s FA Cup, League Cup and FA Women’s Championship triumphs this season. That isn’t to downplay those achievements in any way, but merely to point out that they were part of something much wider. It was, in essence, an outpouring of collective pride and belonging by half a million people coming together, most of them strangers, united by a shared bond forged through football – as was the case at the fan park in Paris on Saturday prior to the sickening and disgraceful scenes that unfolded outside the Stade de France before and after the game. 

For Jürgen Klopp and his players, it was also an opportunity for them to receive the in-person adulation they’d earned and were denied after becoming Premier League champions in 2019/20. 

I’ll be honest: as I walked out of the M&S Bank Arena on Saturday night, emotions running high, the prospect of a victory parade on Sunday felt almost inconceivable. Obviously, given the logistics involved in holding such an event, and with several players heading away on international duty straight away, the decision to hold a parade had to be made well in advance, but the defeat to Real Madrid stung so much, creating such a sombre mood, that it was difficult to imagine how the parade might look and feel less than 24 hours later. The carnival that would have taken place had Liverpool become European champions for the seventh time and completed a cup treble was at risk of becoming a somewhat flat and awkward affair. 

In the immediate aftermath, I also wondered whether the players themselves would actually want to be there after suffering such a devastating blow, so soon after missing out on the Premier League title in such excruciating fashion as well. 

On Sunday morning, walking through the city centre, it was hard not to visualise how different it might have looked had Liverpool been victorious in Paris. Yet, while a lingering sense of disappointment still hung in the air, there was a palpable sense of defiance and anticipation as the parade grew closer. What better way to heal the wounds of the night before than to line the streets and give the players the kind of reception they deserved after such a phenomenal campaign which produced so many euphoric moments? 

The spectacular scenes that unfolded as Liverpool morphed into a sea of red were not those of a team and a supporter base feeling sorry for themselves, mourning what they hadn’t won – they were determined to decide their own ending to this epic 63-game campaign. Because while Liverpool fell just short of winning the Premier League (with a points tally that would have been enough in any other era) and Champions League in the end, this team went closer than any other English side ever has to turning the quadruple dream into reality, taking every single competition they entered right down to the final few kicks. That alone is something to be immensely proud of. 

The fact that only winning two of a possible four trophies is cause for rival fans to rejoice, tells you absolutely everything about where Liverpool are at right now, and how they are viewed by those who could only dream of being in such a position of strength. It’s worth contextualising this domestic couple double, too, with the fact that as recently as 2018, Liverpool had gone six full seasons without winning anything. If, as plenty have suggested, this domestic couple double represents some kind of failure – i.e. not winning at least a treble – then you know you’ve got it pretty good.

To be part of the parade in the flesh was a genuine privilege – a soul-cleansing experience that washed away not all, but a significant amount of the pain from the Champions League final. It was clear, too, just how much it lifted the players to be greeted with such rapturous adoration and warmth by 500,000 people as they returned home. It was an occasion none of them will ever forget.

Liverpool might not have finished the 2021/22 season with the two most coveted trophies of all, but they created a vast catalogue of joyous memories that will last a lifetime. No one can take any of that away from them.

Sunday’s parade, you feel, is the ultimate incentive for these players to go and do it all over again.