Guarding Honor
I don’t recall there being this much conversation about the propriety of an honor guard in any of Manchester City’s many title-winning seasons. Perhaps my memory is failing me, but this seems to be an issue particular to this season. I daresay it feels particular to Liverpool. Regardless of the urgings of pundits and sour rivals, however, the honor guard for Liverpool’s final games is more important this season than ever before.
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A Time-Honored Tradition
A guard of honor is simple enough. The opposing side lines up to applaud the title-winning team, congratulating them for the successful season. It also feels important to note that an honor guard has never been strictly limited to congratulating the title winners. Plenty of momentous occasions in football merited an honor guard. Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard both received honor guards for their final games with Liverpool. They were testaments to their importance to the sport and the legacy they left behind. The honor guard is also purely customary. There’s no rule mandating it. I don’t have an adequate grasp of the history to make any sweeping pronouncements about the antiquity of the tradition, but it’s familiar enough to me. There are certainly occasions when an honor guard is refused, such as in protest or to honor a more significant rivalry. However, these are inevitable deviations from the norm.
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I feel like it’s important to highlight that simple fact in light of Peter Crouch’s and others’ assertions that the honor guard is humiliating or embarrassing. Sure, it might be if the FA required it, but it isn’t. Rival sides are permitted to honor the champions-elect in this way, or to choose not to for their reasons. It being customary does mean that there’s a presumption in favor of it, but the social pressure to do so has never been all that strong. Arguably, it should be stronger given that sportsmanship is a dying virtue in the modern game.
Though I think Crouch in particular can be forgiven for his approach to the issue. His journeyman career makes him fairly broad-minded when it comes to club honors, and he was clear that his criticism of the tradition was merely a personal preference. Not so for pundits like Troy Deeney and others who have been urging Chelsea and Arsenal in particular to refuse the tradition. And it all comes back to one thing: a season-long narrative that Liverpool are unworthy champions.
An Honor For This Campaign
I’ve already done my part in evicerating the myth that Liverpool are Premier League Champions for any reason other than being the best team in the Premier League. The evidence that it’s complete nonsense continues to mount, but that hasn’t stopped the narrative from continuing to mutate. “They won’t win anything next season!” “They’re due for a collapse!” “Slot won’t win with his squad!” It gets to a point where it stops being annoying and starts being hilarious. Adding to the hilarity factor is Mikel Arteta’s very public petulance. The fact that he lost the Premier League title in a season where pundits were near-unanimous in declaring him the heir-apparent to an ailing Manchester City is clearly weighing on him. When asked about his Champions League tie with likely champions PSG, all he could manage to talk about was Liverpool.
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Arteta will never say it outright, but a clear theme to his commentary on the issue is that Liverpool beat Arsenal simply by being lucky. Someone call Liverpool Council! I’ve found enough rent-free real estate to end the city’s housing crisis for good. But there’s simply no sustaining this notion. Unlike Liverpool — or indeed, even Manchester City — there’s been no point in this season where Arsenal have been at the top of the table.
When they fell behind by a double-digit point tally, they never made up the gap and just continued to fall behind. And as far as the “injuries, injuries, injuries” excuse goes, Arsenal got Saka and Odegaard back and look worse than ever before. They put up an inferior performance against PSG compared to Liverpool and lost to a Bournemouth side that Liverpool beat twice earlier in the season without conceding a single goal.
In this media environment, it was essential that Arsenal provided an honor guard, a public sign that they recognized Liverpool as legitimate champions. If this was humiliating, Arteta has only himself to blame. By insisting on downplaying Liverpool’s accomplishments, he has only thrown their success into sharp relief. By only referencing the gap in their outcomes through the lens of excuses, he has put himself in an unwelcome position. But Liverpool are the champions, and they have earned it. It’s time for Arsenal and everyone else to face up to that fact.