The coronavirus pandemic has shut down not just football, but sports overall, worldwide. We are living in extraordinarily unprecedented times right now as numerous institutions that continued to operate during even World Wars are now completely shuttered.
As anyone familiar with world football knows, Gerry and the Pacemakers’ “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is the anthem of Liverpool FC, the side that many footy observers would agree was the best team in the world most of this season.
The reigning European and FIFA Club World Cup champions, just two wins away from clinching the Premier League title, are led by manager Jurgen Klopp, who was sent a video of ICU workers at a hospital singing #YNWA.
The gesture moved Klopp to tears, he admitted.
“My English is not good enough to say. It’s extraordinary, it’s great,” Klopp said.
“I think yesterday I was sent a video of people in the hospital just outside the intensive care area and when they started singing You’ll Never Walk Alone, I started crying immediately.”
Although the specific video was not identified, it would most likely be this one, from the Maasstad Ziekenhuis hospital in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
You'll Never Walk Alone #YNWA #ThankYouNHS ? pic.twitter.com/oi7BSK1A9D
— ScouseScene (@scousescene) March 25, 2020
“It’s unbelievable,” Klopp continued. “but it shows everything, these people not only work but they have such a good spirit.
“They are used to helping other people, we need to get used to it because usually we have our own problems and stuff, but it’s their job, they do it day in and day out.”
“They bring themselves, if you want, in danger because they help ill, sick and seriously handicapped people, so I couldn’t admire them more and appreciate it more, I really couldn’t.”
Amid the COVID19 pandemic, take some time to remember who the real heroes are right now- the healthcare workers on the front lines, day in, day out. They are working long hours, sometimes with little to no sleep, to try and save as many of us as they can.
It’s easy to understand why Jurgen Klopp got emotional from this video. It’s getting a little dusty in here right now for me.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link
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