This story could have started with a tragedy, it ended with disillusionment for Liverpool supporters. Defeated in the Champions League final by Real Madrid on Saturday May 28 at the Stade de France (0-1), the Reds missed out on the seventh C1 in their history. Disappointed, the players of Jürgen Klopp, already beaten by Real in 2018 in kyiv in the final of the competition, quickly left the lawn. Dejected, the English supporters did the same by deserting the Saint-Denis plain, putting a bitter end to a Parisian odyssey of several days.
This journey therefore started on Thursday, part of the 60,000 English supporters having arrived in advance, ready to do battle with the Parisian night. So that, from Friday morning, an English Internet user worries on social networks to have lost his father in the evening. The latter, in his sixties, got lost in the streets of the capital. After numerous calls for witnesses, the Reds supporter was found on Friday afternoon … at “The Kop” bar, boulevard Ney, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, in the middle of hundreds of Scousers, who made this bar colors of Liverpool one of their rallying points in the capital.
Saturday afternoon, a few hours before the final, there are still many of them. “I haven’t slept for three days“, explains Amar, the manager of the bar, a fervent supporter of the Reds, impressed by the number of Scousers (Liverpool supporters) present in the streets of the capital and in his establishment. “On Friday, I had to close at 5 p.m. because there were too many people on the tram tracks. And for the final, I had to communicate that we will be closed, otherwise there will be too many people.“
The majority of Reds supporters instead met on Saturday afternoon at the other end of Paris, Place de la Nation, to access the Cours de Vincennes. This is where the fanzone set up by the municipality is to welcome this red tide and the 40,000 supporters who do not have places for the final. This is the case of Morgan, who arrives with his friends from Birmingham, 150 kilometers from Liverpool: “We couldn’t buy tickets, there were too many people and it was too expensive.“A friend of his, a beer in hand and a blow in the nose, does not budge:”We’re going to party tonight at Place de la Bastille after Liverpool’s victory!“
The entrance to the Reds supporters fanzone #UCLfinal #LIVRMA pic.twitter.com/B2DCldxBuV
— Denis Menetrier (@DMenetrier) May 28, 2022
Others managed to win the famous sesame, but still joined their supporter friends before taking the road to the Stade de France. Like Alan, shirtless, enjoying the sun and the party at the foot of the Triumph of the Republic, a sculpture near the fanzone: “We just lost the Premier League, but we’ve already won two trophies, so don’t worry. I think we will win tonight, 4-2. You can write it down, you’ll see.“The English supporters do not yet suspect what they are going to experience near the Stade de France.
The result did not ultimately succeed for the Reds, like the whole evening on the side of the Saint-Denis plain. The complex logistics for the installation of the fanzone in the east of Paris was also problematic around the Stade de France. Generally, a city has eighteen months to organize a Champions League final. After UEFA’s decision to withdraw the final in St Petersburg following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Paris only had three. And it happened.
The start of the final was postponed by 36 minutes due to crowd movements around the Stade de France. Still blocked at 9 p.m. when the match was to start, hundreds of Liverpool supporters only reached the stands a few minutes before kick-off. Some of them were targeted with tear gas.
Others waited two hours in front of Gate Z, which was closed for a while, before joining the stands at halftime. Finally, others without tickets for the match, Liverpool supporters like young people from the Ile-de-France who forced the filtering of the police, climbed the gates of the Stade de France to reach the stands. Answers will obviously be expected on these shortcomings, while UEFA has denounced the existence of counterfeit tickets.
Still a lot of people at the entrance to the stadium when the kick-off should have taken place now. It is especially on the side of the Liverpool supporters on this block. #UCLfinal #LIVRMA pic.twitter.com/LolkTFi326
— Denis Menetrier (@DMenetrier) May 28, 2022
The evening turned sour when scattered clashes broke out and one of our colleagues from The Team was targeted by Liverpool supporters. Despite the presence of several Liverpool legends in the stadium, such as Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen, Ian Rush, or Kenny Dalglish, the atmosphere, hailed all day by English supporters, therefore took a certain hit. Before the Reds lost on the pitch. Not in the stands. Despite this setback and this evening that went wrong, around the Stade de France and on the lawn, the English supporters made their voices heard.
Five minutes from the end of the match, they began their legendary “You’ll Never Walk Alone“(“You will never walk alone”), to support their players in defeat. Before the match, on the forecourt of the Stade de France, Elliott, a Liverpool supporter in his twenties, had guaranteed us “Liverpool victory“. And clarified that if successful, he and his girlfriend Rebecca would go “party in the club until the end of the night“.
Other Scousers wanted to mark the end of their Parisian adventure with an unforgettable evening spent in the streets of the capital. Finally, between the transport problems, the defeat on the field and these overflows before and during the meeting, disappointment took over. Near the bar “The Kop”, around two o’clock in the morning, the atmosphere had considerably descended. The party was to go on all night. She was eventually spoiled.