The End of the Storm review: Bland piece of work on Liverpool FC's extraordinary league winning 2019-20 season

Disappointment has been a part of Liverpool FC’s lexicon for a long time, especially since the advent of the Premier League. For 30 years, the league title was elusive. The team was forever engrossed in the battle to finish in the top four. Players were developed, became top draws and left for greener pastures. Disappointment is also LFC’s current form. A recent heavy defeat against rivals Manchester City meant LFC are now 10 points behind from top of the table, sitting at fourth spot with 40 points from 23 games. After watching the documentary ‘The End of the Storm’, which chronicles the club’s 2019-2020 epic season where they won the league title after three decades, there’s the same sense of disappointment. An event as significant as the club’s 19th league title win and how they went on to achieve it under a tactically brilliant and charismatic German manager deserved a better treatment on screen, even if it is only produced to please the fans of the club. Made by James Erskine, who also directed ‘Sachin: A Billion Dreams’, the documentary interviews key personnel who were involved in last year’s success and stitches them together with the highlights of Liverpool’s key wins in the Premier League. Klopp does most of the talking, and it works because of his power of articulation. English is not the first language of the manager, but Klopp almost every time finds the right words in the language he mastered after coming to England in 2015. Be it to utter something humours or a dose of scathing rebuke. Not just in this documentary but the evidence is available in numerous press conferences and post match interviews. Remember how he announced himself in Liverpool after winning trophies with Borussia Dortmund? “I’m a totally normal guy, I came from the Black Forest. I’m the Normal One.”

The documentary also picks fans from around the world and showcases their relationship with the club. From Liverpool to Brazil to Kolkata, a bunch of them speak on how they fell in love with the team. The exercise feels like an attempt in portraying the global fan base of the club, but again it doesn’t add much. Liverpool FC is a giant of a football club with a long history of success so it’s evident that they enjoy the support of millions around the world. Talking about the particular season, it was a unique one for good and bad reasons. Liverpool were unbeaten till the end of February 2020 in the Premier League. They were like a machine on a relentless run, winning against every team in the league. When it was clear that it was only a matter of time that Klopp’s team would be crowned champions, the COVID-19 pandemic happened and the league had to stop the matches. The Premier League restarted, Liverpool won a few more and Jordan Henderson lifted the trophy at Anfield with no crowd inside the stadium. The revealing parts in the documentary are related to Klopp talking about the relationship with his late father. This has nothing to do with Liverpool’s extraordinary season but it is fascinating and refreshing to see Klopp opening on personal relationships. Klopp’s personality is as important as his tactical acumen, and it plays a big role when it comes to on-field football matters. It’s his persona that gives his teams an edge and they become an extension of his character. This aspect is not new in football but the documentary should’ve pushed the boundaries in exploring Klopp the human being and what makes him such a success in the field of football and management. Star players like Jordan Henderson, Sadio Mane, Virgil van Dijk, Roberto Firmino and Alisson Becker all feature but there are hardly any insights about the matches or opponents or tactics. Also, Liverpool’s transformation under Klopp took time. Gradually, season after season, the team made improvements and moved up the order. The league success of 2019-20 was a result of a process that took five years to bear fruits. Focussing only on the league glory, which the documentary does, and discarding the process shows the makers were in haste in bringing the project out. The run time of 99 minutes makes it crisp but the documentary is a bland piece of work that neither does justice to the scores of fans nor the remarkable season of Liverpool FC. The End of the Storm is currently streaming on  Discovery Plus.