sport news OLIVER HOLT: I don't think I've ever seen a team fold so suddenly in English ... trends now
There was a great victory at Anfield on Sunday evening but there was a momentous defeat, too, and the defeat was more compelling.
Liverpool recorded a historic triumph over their fiercest rivals but the 7-0 scoreline was about the agony of loss. Most of all, it was about Manchester United. It was about their abject surrender. It was about their startling capitulation. It was not that they lost. It was the way that they lost and what it says about them and how they can recover.
Defeats like that leave scars. They carry cultural significance. There are lop-sided games and then there are games like the one that took place at Anfield where the stage and the opponent lend them a deeper meaning.
No one who was there will ever forget the scenes at the Estadio Mineirao in 2014 when Brazil were humiliated 7-1 by Germany in the semi-finals of a World Cup taking place on their own soil. Anfield on Sunday night carried echoes of being in Belo Horizonte nine years ago.
That was about the way that the losers lost, too. Brazil were shambolic. It felt as though they gave up. They lost their pride, just as Manchester United’s players lost theirs. Germany scored at will, just as Liverpool did. They walked the ball into the net. The enduring image is not of any of the Germany goals but of the Brazil defender David Luiz crouching on the turf in a kind of foetal position, grieving for the blow that was being inflicted on Brazil’s national psyche and the country’s very identity.
Manchester United produced a shambolic performance in their 7-0 loss against Liverpool
United's abject surrender to Liverpool will leave scars and carry cultural significance
Their defeat at Anfield echoed memories of watching Brazil's 7-1 defeat to Germany live
I spoke to the Brazilian journalist and academic, Eduardo Mack, on Monday morning and he and his young son were waking up in Rio, already talking about the Liverpool-United result and drawing parallels with the agony of the Mineirao. His son had found a comedy clip of people pretending to be in the stadium in 2014 with Brazil 7-0 down, saying they still believed Brazil would stage a comeback.
‘It has become a reference point,’ Mack said. ‘If you want to refer to something tragic or something really bad when you’re with friends, you say, “like the 7-1”. It is something that is going to be haunting us for many years. It has become a part of our culture that we wish was not there.’
For United, part of the trauma of Sunday evening lay in the fact it was so unexpected. ‘I’ve never been more relaxed coming here in the last nine years as a Manchester United fan,’ Sky’s Gary Neville said to Graeme Souness before the match. ‘Seriously?’ Souness asked him. ‘Honestly,’ Neville said, ‘do you know, this bunch are tough.’
I agreed with Neville at the time. I think plenty did. But tough? No one will ever call these United players tough again. Never, ever. I can think of plenty of other adjectives for a lot of them: craven, pathetic, spineless, gutless, feckless, petulant, immature, pitiful, wretched. I could go on. Most of the descriptions have been used about them already anyway. I don’t think I have ever seen a team fold so comprehensively, so suddenly in an English club game.
Being in that United line-up will be like a stain against your name. It will stay with you for the rest of your career. It’s the opposite of winning a medal. Not something to celebrate and keep in a frame or a case but something to try to wipe away. A lot of reputations are going to take an awfully long time to recover. It may be a while before anyone has the nerve to talk about Lisandro Martinez as ‘the butcher’ again. Butchers are supposed to be fearsome, right. Martinez was last seen being put on his backside by Mo Salah and bullied by Liverpool’s front three.
Being in that United line-up will be a stain in the name of all their players involved in the game
Players like Lisandro Martinez who have impressed this season failed to show up and it's unlikely his 'butcher' nickname will be used anytime soon after United's heavy defeat
No one will call United's players tough again after their spineless, wretched performance
And are we supposed to admire Raphael Varane because he shouted at the rest of United’s players to applaud the fans at the end of the match? Do me a favour. It’s a radical idea but the fans might have been more appreciative if Varane had done a bit more to stop seven goals being stuck past him in United’s defence. Save the empty crowd-pleasing gestures for another time.
Luke Shaw lost his nerve, Diogo Dalot was a liability, Casemiro the Killer turned into an anonymous pussycat, utterly outplayed by a Liverpool midfield
