This Is Only Their Beginning

The UEFA Champions League final had come to an end, but the buzz around it was still going strong.

The day after the match, sports media across Europe—and even the world—used the same word to describe it: classic.

From 1-0 to 2-1, from 2-2 to 2-3, and then the last-gasp equalizer in the final two minutes.

A goal apiece in extra time, stirring and thrilling, as exhilarating as a roller coaster.

L'Équipe's front-page spread featured only three images: Chen Anno suspended in the air for his bicycle kick, the instant his instep struck the ball for that forty-meter rocket, and the moment his Panenka penalty hit the net.

The headline read: Art and Power, Neither Can Be Missing.

Marca, unusually, did not mock the opposition: Annuo Crowned in Cardiff.

Even Madrid's media had to concede.

But the Merengues in the comments were arguing fiercely.

Some said the loss was deserved, while others said Real Madrid would come back next year. But not one person said the final had been boring.

On social media, every goal had been edited into its own short video.

The bicycle-kick clip surpassed fifty million views on YouTube within thirty-six hours.

Fans from different countries flooded the comments in their own languages with the same sentence: This is the most beautiful goal I have ever seen in a final.

The comments under the forty-meter cruise missile were even livelier.

Someone had added subtitles to He Wei's line, "Drawing a mighty bow like the full moon, looking northwest, shooting down the heavenly wolf," and even foreigners were asking what it meant.

The heat from the final had yet to die down.

But Liverpool, the city itself, was beginning to boil over.

At 2:30 p.m. on June 6.

Liverpool's championship parade officially set off.

The route stretched fifteen