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Liverpool is a club drenched in tradition. Among England's biggest teams, it is the only one not to have moved to a new stadium in recent years or comprehensively refurbished its current home, Anfield. (Plans are on the drawing board for a new facility.) Until recently it also showed a resistance to some of the more overt commercialization, from club-themed television channels to personal seat licenses, which other Premier League clubs have embraced in an attempt to maximize revenue.
.Much of this traditionalism stems from the values instilled by the club's most iconic manager, Bill Shankly, who led Liverpool from 1959 to 1974. Mr. Shankly, who joked that as a boy he was so poor that he did not take a bath until he was 15, was a committed socialist who fostered the notion of Liverpool as a community club. Among other things, he created Liverpool's "boot room ethos," a sort of in-house apprenticeship aimed at producing future coaches in his own image. Indeed, in the 25 years following his retirement, Liverpool had five different managers (a remarkable total, given the rapid coaching turnover at most clubs). Each was either a "boot room" graduate or a long-time Liverpool player.

NEW ORLEANS — Big Apple vs. Big Easy. Unbeaten New York Giants vs. unbeaten New Orleans Saints. Top-ranked Giants defense vs. tops-in-scoring Saints offense. This had all the makings of a tightly contested NFL showdown for supremacy (at least October supremacy) in the NFC.
But quarterback Drew Brees and the New Orleans offense took the suspense out of it early Sunday with one touchdown drive after another. Saints fans at the Superdome got to spend most of the second half in a Mardi Gras-come-early celebration of a 48-27 romp.