Liverpool in Japan

This week, Liverpool Football Club are back in Japan for the first time in twenty years. In 2005, Liverpool took part in the FIFA Club World Championships in Yokohama. I know the city well and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see my favorite team play a competitive fixture out here. I knew it’d be worth it, but I had no idea it’d be an experience to remember forever.

Yokohama is a solid 90 minutes from Narita airport, so I took a nap on the bus. I was still groggy when we arrived, enough so that it didn’t register to me that there was an unusual crowd milling around outside the hotel. Anyone who knows me knows how often I wear Liverpool gear, so I wore a red Liverpool tracksuit on the bus. As the hotel staff ushered me into the lobby, I started to realize that there were a whole lot of other people walking with me wearing red Liverpool tracksuits too.

Hang on. Is that… Peter Crouch?!

Yup, I’d unintentionally booked myself into the same hotel as the team. And the hotel staff assumed, understandably given my clothes, that I’d come off the team bus and not the airport bus parked right behind it.

The next few days were full of random encounters in and around the hotel. Champions League Final hero Jerzy Dudek in the lift. Bumping into assistant coach Pako Ayestarán in the mall.

And then there were the encounters with local fans. One small group followed a friend and I out of the hotel, across the street and into a mall. It’d be sinister anywhere else, but given that it was Japan, it was clear what had happened: they saw two foreigners emerge from the team hotel wearing official team gear and figured we were club staff. We had to turn around and gently explain that we were not worth following!

Another group of fans camped out in the hotel lobby, eyes trained on the bank of elevators, waiting for their favorite player to emerge. After a while they began to recognize me, so every time I left the hotel I was treated to the sight of the fans rising in expectation when caught a glimpse of a red Liverpool kit — only to sigh and sit back down again when they realize that no, it’s only me again.

We ended up losing in the final of the Club World Championship in brutal fashion, 1-0 to São Paulo after having three goals disallowed. On that last night I decided to join the fans in the lobby to cheer the team in. I sat next to an older British gentleman named Phil who told me he traveled everywhere to follow Liverpool.

Oh, that’s nice. Must be expensive though, coming out here.

It’s not a problem, he said. My son arranges it for me.

Wow, what a great son he is. What does he do?

“He’s Jamie.”

My silence and confused face prompted him to continue.

“Carragher. My son is Jamie Carragher.”

My reaction, internally, was roughly on a par with that scene from 22 Jump Street where Jenko realizes Schmidt slept with the captain’s daughter. Wait, what?? That Jamie??? Local lad and club legend Jamie Carragher?!?!?

We got talking, about the team, about football in general, about supporting Liverpool from Asia, and it was great. One of Jamie’s friends came over to chat, and Phil introduced me by saying “he’s one of us.”

Look, that might sound like a throwaway comment, but I cannot tell you how much it meant to me.

Foreign fans like me exist in a weird space. We’re coveted but also ridiculed. At best we’re regarded as a tier below the locals, the “true” heart of the team, who we're always told have a connection we’ll never have. Whenever the topic of clubs going off on preseason tours of Asia comes up, passion is always seen as a surprise, because we're just dumb walking wallets to exploit. Being recognized as “one of us” by a true local is something I’ll always treasure.

Phil said they’re going to have a little get-together in Jamie’s room and I’m welcome to join them. When the team gets in, he said to give him a few minutes with his son, then we’ll all go up together.

The team arrives. We clap them in. Phil goes to talk to Jamie. And then they disappear for a bit.

Wait. Did they ditch me?

More time passes and it becomes increasingly apparent that, yes, must have. And hey, of course they did. I’m just some random guy they barely know. Such is life.

I head for the lifts, a second too late to catch one that’s about to go up. Through the closing doors I spot the Carraghers — and they spot me. Phil says “there he is, come on…” and the doors shut.

I have no idea where he’s staying or how to get there, so I just hop in the next lift. I was quickly joined by Pepe Reina, Liverpool’s goalkeeper, who looked even more miserable than I felt. He seemed properly distraught, head in hands. It was all I could do just to say, genuinely, that our defeat wasn’t on him, that the team deserved so much more. It didn’t seem to make much difference.

I spent a bit of time kicking my heels in my room, bemoaning my apparent bad luck to nobody in particular. And then I thought, eh, there’s a bar on the top floor. Maybe they went there? It’s worth a shot.

They went there.

Almost the whole team is up there, most of them still in their club tracksuits. Luis García is bouncing along to the music. Xabi Alonso sitting cooly in the corner. I managed to tell Peter Crouch that I loved his first goal in the semi-final — in a typically self-effacing manner he said he got lucky. I tried to say hi to Sami Hyypiä, but he seemed to blank me… only to turn around and offer me a beer. Pepe Reina even showed up, sporting a far-too-tight and far-too-bright shirt with a huge smile on his face.

Steven Gerrard burst in at the end to tell his teammates that he’d found a place that was showing the Arsenal-Chelsea match, so they slowly filed out. I went to the toilet before heading down, and guess who lines up at the urinal next to me? Jamie Carragher.

I waited outside for him (I’m not a weirdo) and said that I’d met his dad downstairs. Jamie burst into a huge grin and slapped me on the back a few times, laughing and joking in his thick Scouse accent. Here I am, finally having my moment to chat with a Liverpool legend. But there was just one problem.

“Jamie, mate, I am so sorry. I am a huge Liverpool fan, but… I don’t understand a word you’ve said.”

He had an even bigger laugh at that, and so did I. The perfect end to a trip with memories that will last a lifetime.