And we found a way to sing the praises of liverpool's egyptian star, mohammed salah. I've had similar conversations from hollywood to indianapolis. Whenever i meet a liverpool fan. We don't need to know each other to be friendly with each other, because we share a third thing

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their best, team sports, whether you're on the field or in the stands, are about being together, about celebrating together and grieving together and playing together. At the begin an end of every game, our fans sing, you'll never walk alone, a show tune from the musical caracel that was refashioned into a pop song by jerry and the paste makers, only to be re fashioned again into a hymn by liverpool fans. Walk on. Walk on with hope in your heart, and you'll never walk alone, goes the chorus. I need to feel alone to make it through this vale of tears, and liverpool helps me. But we are not only bound together by a shared sense of what we love, we are also joined by what we revile. And what we revile most is manchester united. There's a famous line, oftenr ed, probably incorrectly, to genghis khan, that the greatest joy for a man is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all they possess, to see those they love in tears, to ride their horses and to hold their wives and daughters in his arms. That is a vile way to conceive of joy, fueled by the hatred that has given us the darkest days in the history of our species. And i want nothing to do with it. I am disgusted by the notion that life knows no greater joy than to see one's enemies laid dead before you. And yet that is part of the human story. Not just the human story actually, but also my human story. Melinda gates has written, every society says its outsiders are the problem. But the outsiders are not the problem. The urge to create outsiders is the problem. I've seen how my own religious tradition has created and demonized outsiders to solidify the power and connectedness of insiders. And i've seen the same in internet communities and music phantoms. And i have certainly seen it in football phantoms, including my own.