300 Words on ... Liverpool Beating Tottenham

Match report: asdfbasdgaksdgkasdngkjasdfnasjkdfas!

Almost ten years ago, Sunderland’s Darren Bent hit a volley into the ground, past Liverpool’s Glen Johnson but right at keeper Jose Reina. Normally a routine save, the shot hit a balloon that a fan had thrown onto the field; Reina and Johnson’s eyes followed the wrong sphere; the balloon went wide; the ball ended up in the net; Liverpool lost; Sunderland won. Liverpool had finished second the season before; they dropped to seventh this year; manager Rafa Benitez, who won the Champions League and the FA Cup, left the club after the season; Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano, two of the team’s biggest stars, were gone a year later.

In December, Liverpool and Everton were tied 0-0 with a handful of seconds left on the clock. Virgil van Dijk, perhaps Liverpool’s best player, mis-hit a volley, skying the ball toward the upper reaches of Anfield, with the chances of three points seemingly fluttering away with it. Then, this happened:

Today, Tottenham came to Anfield and played Liverpool as well as anyone has this season. It actually might not even be possible for a game to be as even as this one. Based on the chances both sides created, the likelihood of a given result was split directly down the middle: 34 percent for a Liverpool win, 34 for Tottenham, and 32 percent for a draw. That 32 percent was about to come out on top ... until the starting goalkeeper for the World Cup champs deflected the ball toward one of the most reliable Premier League defenders of the past decade, who kicked it into his own net.

I have no idea if Liverpool is going to win the league. What I do know: they’ve had plenty of that uncontrollable thing you need in order to make it happen.