Why this Manchester United fan will be supporting Liverpool in the Champions League final against Real Madrid

Forgive me father Sir Alex, for I've sinned. I must confess I've had impure thoughts. I've coveted what's not mine, lusting after my neighbour's manager. I know neither the footballing gods, nor my flock, the Red Devils look down kindly upon such adultery. I know that I should love Jose wholeheartedly but it's hard, for the heart seeks what it has not. 

I know we said, ‘We do’ to Jose, and accepted him in sickness and health, with no ball possession and all his toxic mood swings and delusions about ‘football heritage’.

 I thought that's what my heart wanted, to win some trophies and recreate the days gone-by. What I didn’t know was that he’d go classic-Season 3-about-to-implode Jose without passing his usual Season 2-winning-the-league version.

It’s not just about failing to win, but the way we fail to win – limp and flaccid, running around like an old man who has been asked not to strain himself after getting an angioplasty. But this is not about the Barcelona’s Fallen Angel raging against the Cruyff ideal, but Jurgen Klopp, the man who has Liverpool playing classic heavy-metal football.

Klopp is the kind of manager you'd trust your children with, full of radiance and smiles, making everyone believe they are the best there is. It’s the complete anti-thesis of Jose’s ‘throwing-under-the-bus’ style of management.

The kind of football he plays at times makes you believe in the Promised Land, where the muscles don’t tire from pressing, where the clear stream of thought that strives for attacking football hasn’t lost its way into the dreary desert sand of clueless running into the channels.

Klopp, spending a fraction of the budget of others, has crafted a team which strives to etch its name into the record books against true European royalty. Zidane and his men have rewritten the rule books in club football, as one of the greatest players of his generation strives to do something no one has done before – win three Champions League titles in a row.

And in Ronaldo, they have perhaps the most complete footballer of all time – a man whose vanity is only surpassed by his achievements, a combination of muscles carved up to repeat statistical impossibilities. 

But there’s so much about Klopp’s Liverpool that demands your attention. It’s a reminder that in football it’s not always the biggest spenders who win. That having a philosophy matters, that it’s possible to do it your own way. 

Then there's Salah, a poor boy from Egypt who’s not just giving millions hope that they can make something of their lives but is standing up as a beacon in a world full of Islamophobia, reminding us that our faiths might be different, but all of us are essentially the same.

Salah’s 44 goals are unprecedented in English football, and it will be a travesty if he has no silverware to show for this. It’s true Liverpool are far off the top of the Premier League, having failed to beat many of the lesser teams. They have a tendency to lose themselves in matches.

But when the Red switch goes on, they’re simply divine and unbeatable. There are moments when it looks like the trio of Salah, Firmino and Sane have a telepathic understanding that makes the defenders look little more than static cones in a defensive training.

Klopp, who took on the might of Bayern Munich and nearly beat them, deserves to get his hands on the Big Ears. Of course, Manchester United will always remain my team, which I will support, with or without trophies, even if they play the most boring football in the land and get relegated. But for one night, cardinally sinful as the thought may be, I will be supporting Liverpool against Real Madrid. May the footballing gods make of it what they will.