We Two Kings
If you’ve been a sports fan of any kind for any appreciable length of time, the unavoidable topic of conversation will inevitably be one simple question. Who is the GOAT? Despite the name, which asks for the Greatest of All Time, this debate finds itself distorted by recency bias and reduced to generational squabbles. For example, whether one favors Michael or LeBron tends to come down to whether the year you were born begins with a 19 or a 20. Other considerations come into play as well. The Messi vs Ronaldo debate comes from the rivalry between Barca and Real Madrid. It also has roots between Iberian and South American soccer. Within LFC itself, a Messi/Ronaldo-type debate simmers between our two kings: Mohamed Salah and Kenny Dalglish.
READ MORE: Darwinian Evolution by Jack Champagne
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Comparing Reigns
Kenny, rightfully, casts a long shadow over the club’s history. Arguably, even Salah’s moniker of “Egyptian King” is a qualifier that reminds us of the original King of the Kop. King Kenny is memorialized in song and celebrated in the annals of Liverpool’s history for a very good reason. He was a notoriously artful player who played a key role in some of Liverpool’s greatest triumphs.
His partnership with Ian Rush in particular was the stuff of legends, being a key contributor to the latter being the all-time goalscorer for Liverpool by some distance. Kenny himself remains one of the top goal-scorers in the club’s history, with numbers comparable to those of the venerable One Club Man Steven Gerrard. The quintessential team player, he remains the all-time leader in assists. Kenny remains a favorite of devoted Kopites, twice topping the list of Players Who Shook the Kop at the first and second place respectively.
Salah has absolutely earned the moniker of King in his own right. The Egyptian King is merely a decade of goals away from being the third all-time goal-scorer in the history of the club, a hallmark that is readily accessible if he continues at the pace he’s going this season. He’s already at the top of the charts in European competition, having surpassed Steven Gerrard despite playing for Liverpool for about half as long. His achievements in assists is also nothing to sneeze at, having surpassed club legends like John Barnes and Steve Heighway, with at least a couple more years of play still in him.
These milestones are important to place in the context of being in the nightmarishly competitive Premier League, which comes with its own set of challenges. With less than half the season under his belt, Salah has already broken the record for most games registering both a goal and an assist at this point, putting him above the likes of Thierry Henry and Alan Shearer. It’s hard to dispute that we’re witnessing the birth of a legend.
The GOAT of KINGS
But who is the GOAT? The question is far more complicated than it appears on its face. There is certainly a generational element to it. Younger and newer fans never saw Kenny Dalglish play in his prime. Those folks are bound to be overawed by the star power of Mohamed Salah. I suspect that if another PWSTK survey was taken this year, Salah would easily top the list. But the question seems to transcend even time itself. Veteran Kopites are seemingly coming around to the idea that Salah may have dethroned their former king.
Some have gone so far as to call Salah The Second Coming of King Kenny. You have to put him in the same breath as Ian Rush and Robbie Fowler. Rush himself has compared the two, calling Salah “the best Premier League player the club has ever had”. With Salah’s stellar, record-breaking performance against West Ham on Sunday, seminal historian of Liverpool (both city and club) Stephen F. Kelly was left only to laconically state “Salah is better than Kenny”. It’s hard to think of a greater plaudit than that. That goes double when coming from someone so deeply immersed in the history of the club.
For some, however, to talk up Salah in such a way constitutes lese majeste. And this is simply because Kenny owes his iconic status in the club’s history to things that cannot be quantified. In the wake of the Heysel disaster, perhaps the darkest moment in the history of English football, Kenny stepped up as the first-ever player-manager of Liverpool FC. Leading the club through a period when the entire world hated them was no easy task. Nevertheless, Kenny Dalglish managed to do so while also leading LFC to a domestic double.
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In the wake of the Hillsborough Disaster, which claimed the lives of 97 Liverpool supporters and deeply traumatized a generation of Liverpudlians, Kenny Dalglish shepherded the club through an unparalleled level of support for the grieving and the dead. There’s simply no denying that the man is a natural-born leader. His intelligence, charisma, and sense of the game translated to immediate success as a manager in a way that few other great players can boast of.
As Liverpool manager, he won 3 league titles before his retirement. He left Liverpool topping the league on his way out. Dalglish departed amidst a level of stress that was destroying him both physically and mentally. As manager of Blackburn Rovers, he led the team from the Second Division to becoming the first Premier League champions not named Manchester United. As caretaker manager of Liverpool in the Premier League era, he ended a trophy drought that had sapped the club of its spirit. For many who remember how the massive sea change of the Premier League era left Liverpool behind, Kenny Dalglish represents the last vestige of the halcyon days of Liverpool’s seeming invincibility.
On And Off The Pitch
Is it a bit unfair to weigh King Kenny’s off-the-pitch achievements in such a way? Possibly. But these debates are rarely ever really about facts and figures. They effectively illustrate what these players represent to their fans and their values. Salah’s achievements on the pitch have certainly earned him the status of one of Liverpool’s Greatest. Because he’s arguably never gotten the respect he richly deserved, his biggest fans (myself included) are understandably prickly about any failure to give him his due. And Salah’s heroic status is certainly not limited to his on-pitch greatness.
The Egyptian King is a humanitarian par excellence. He supports various causes bolstering the cultural and economic well-being of his homeland. His legendary status allows him to act as a cultural ambassador for the Arab World and for Islam. This isn’t an insignificant achievement given the sport’s deeply ingrained prejudices against both. He is a monument to the kind of personal discipline that allows one to play the Premier League at the absolute highest level into his thirties. That said, our club is situated within a community. That community owes an immeasurable debt to the leadership of Kenny Dalglish. We live in a deeply cynical age where trophies and big numbers on a stat sheet have become the end-all-be-all. However, we should never forget those intangible qualities are what real sporting heroes are made of.
Regal Experiences
Being a millennial and an international fan comes with a certain level of insecurity. And that insecurity drives me to have a certain level of reverence for the club’s history and sense of locality. Even so, I’ve got memories and experiences of my own that can’t be outsourced to the old guard. Some of my greatest supporter moments were spent watching the partnership of Salah and Bobby Firmino shred opposing defenses. And I still remember the immense thrill that 19-year-old Jack experienced when it was announced that the legendary Kenny Dalglish would return as manager. Regardless of who is truly the greatest, I’m fortunate to have celebrated the reigns of two of the Kop Kings.
