In May of 2020, the return of football was very welcome after two whole months of no live sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The return of the Bundesliga coincided perfectly with my commencement weekend that was supposed to be a great festival on the National Mall (at the same time as the Premier League's final day, to boot), but instead, I switched right from my 30-minute pre-recorded ceremony to a random Bundesliga match in an empty stadium. While far from ideal, I took that as a graduation present because any live sports was better than none.
About a month went by, and the Premier League returned. I had been waiting for three months to finally see my beloved Liverpool win their first league title in 30 years, which they finally did after a 4-0 home win against Crystal Palace and Chelsea beating Man City the next day, in empty stadiums. While it felt great to call ourselves champions, the fact that no fans could be on hand to witness it and the fact that I couldn't be at school to rub it in to my friends who supported other clubs took a lot of the joy out of it. Even the trophy lift felt overshadowed by the fact that no fans could see it and the fact that the club probably spent more money on pyrotechnics than they did on the women's section, which had been relegated from the WSL. When our fans spontaneously gathered outside Anfield on both the night we won the league and the night of the trophy lift, they were scolded by pundits for it, even though the celebrations were outside. Man City, on the other hand, will probably be able to have fans in attendance for their trophy lift this season.
This season started before the dust had even settled from last season, and that was apparent. There was one glimmer of hope that it would be better, and that was several Bundesliga clubs announcing that limited fans would be allowed in areas with low case rates. For the first few weeks of the season, I got to hear the sound of actual people in those games, which was music to my ears compared to the God-awful canned crowd noise on the Premier League broadcasts, which had not allowed crowds in yet. It dramatically improved the viewing experience at home and I could tell that it improved the players' game on the pitch as well.
But as the winter came and a second wave of infections came with it, basically every league was playing behind closed doors, and my excitement about the games waned quite a bit. For Liverpool, the Anfield roar was such a big part of our title-winning season and Champions League-winning season, and I loved hearing it on TV. But this season, the fans on the Kop were replaced by canned crowd noise, which was awful to listen to and sent a bad message. In my view, having crowd noise added to the broadcasts stopped people as a whole from realizing that their actions were why it had to be like this. If you don't do your part to bring the pandemic to the end–get the vaccine, stay masked and distanced– this is what stadiums are going to continue to sound like: empty, quiet, and soulless.
Speaking of soullessness, the European Super League saga was the epitome of that. Twelve owners decided that what makes European soccer great–everyone having an equal chance of promotion and relegation–wasn't good enough for them and decided that they were having none of it. Even though us fans helped drive a nail into its coffin just two days after the project was unveiled, it still was completely ghoulish of these owners to do that when the fans couldn't be in the grounds to protest it. And it feels so unbelievably cruel that three of the four teams in the Champions League and Europa League finals are teams who joined the Super League. This year's Champions League final is what this season deserves, and everybody outside the red part of Manchester is going to get behind Villarreal in the Europa League final. Juventus are allegedly under threat of being kicked out of Serie A and I hope Agnelli gets what he deserves. Whatever the Premier League decides to do with Liverpool and the other five clubs that joined, we deserve it and I will accept whatever the punishment is.
Even through all of this, I anticipate that brighter days are still ahead. The long-anticipated Euros and Copa América are coming up next month, and hopefully there'll be fans in attendance who can provide an atmosphere. I always look forward to seeing fans come out to support their countries, and hopefully countries can get more people vaccinated so that more fans can get into the grounds next season. But I will not look back kindly on the 2020-21 season. This season was the canned crowd noise which was the soundtrack for it. Good riddance, 2020-21 soccer season. You will not be missed one bit.
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