A Liverpool without Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson is hard to comprehend, however well signposted their exits have been, and as the two Anfield greats walked up to the Kop together for one last time it was also difficult to see where Arne Slot’s side are heading next season in their absence. The most positive aspect of a uniquely challenging season for Liverpool is that it is over.

Champions League qualification was at least secured courtesy of a draw against Brentford, who would have qualified for Europe themselves but for Dango Ouattara missing a glorious chance to seal victory with the final act. Salah signed off with a trademark flourish, producing the 120th assist of his Liverpool career for Curtis Jones’s opener. The Egypt international’s 93rd Premier League assist for Liverpool also ensured he overtook Steven Gerrard’s club record in his final appearance. How appropriate that Salah should depart with one more record.

Liverpool players formed guards of honour for Salah and Robertson when they were substituted and afterwards when both were presented with personalised “Champions’ Walls” by Sir Kenny Dalglish. Salah was in tears as the scale of the moment hit home after the final whistle but there were smiles later when he took selfies with supporters. Robertson stood a little further back and absorbed the adulation along with the goodbye. “I think I cried more than in my whole life,” Salah told Sky Sports. “I’m not really an emotional guy.”

They leave behind a club that have the Champions League revenue required for their summer transfer plans but also a lot of uncertainty, from Slot’s ability to coach a recovery to the capacity of new signings to fill the void.

“When you look at the league table you see big clubs who were not able to qualify for the Champions League or Europe so we cannot take it for granted,” said the Liverpool head coach. “It is clear and obvious that we wanted more but I am proud of the players because it has been a very, very difficult season. It is not what I would have loved us to achieve but taking everything into account what has happened, I am happy today that we have qualified for the Champions League.”

There were mosaics on the Kop and Sir Kenny Dalglish Stand for the departing duo and their names were sung on repeat for the opening 15 minutes. Liverpool’s performance was clearly geared at times to getting Salah on the scoresheet too.

For Slot, there was no question of punishing Salah for his latest public criticism with a demotion when Champions League football was at stake. The forward made his 442nd appearance for Liverpool as expected and so nearly provided the perfect send-off. A left-footed free-kick from the edge of the penalty area left Caoimhín Kelleher rooted to the spot only to smack a post and rebound to safety. The former Liverpool goalkeeper and the club’s former captain Jordan Henderson were given rousing receptions on their return.

Henderson exited without fanfare when leaving for Saudi Arabia in 2023. That was put right when the Brentford midfielder was substituted on the hour. All four sides of Anfield stood to applaud a huge influence on Liverpool’s success under Jürgen Klopp. Henderson was visibly moved and returned the compliment, tapping his chest above the heart as he went.

Liverpool had taken a merited lead just before Henderson’s departure. Until that point the hosts had dominated possession and the early chances as Brentford struggled to break their press. Ibrahima Konaté headed straight at Kelleher from a Robertson cross, Dominik Szoboszlai dragged a decent opportunity wide, the Brentford keeper saved impressively from Cody Gakpo and Rio Ngumoha was close to finding the top corner after cutting in from the left. And, in keeping with Liverpool’s season, they almost conceded when put under pressure for the first time.

Kevin Schade found himself with the freedom of the Liverpool six-yard box after Sepp van den Berg and Nathan Collins headed a Henderson delivery back across goal. The forward had time to control and pick his spot but Alisson, back in the side after two months out injured, launched himself across goal and made a vital save with a knee.

The breakthrough was made by Salah. Released down the right by a smart Gakpo pass, the 33-year-old advanced into the area and picked out Jones with a delightful cross played with the outside of his foot. Jones steered a straightforward finish past Kelleher and Liverpool had the foundation for victory. They did not build on it.

Brentford responded well and finally performed with an intensity their situation demanded. Keith Andrews’ team were soon level when Jones headed a deep cross into the path of Keane Lewis-Potter. The left-back’s cross took a slight deflection off the Liverpool goalscorer en route to Schade, who beat Alisson with a diving header.

Kelleher denied the substitute Florian Wirtz in stoppage time and Brentford made one last push for Europe. Ouattara, rising alone to meet Vitaly Janelt’s cross, should have sent them there but miscued badly.

Possession

Liverpool59%Brentford41%

Goal attempts

Liverpool

Off target16

On target8

Brentford

Off target9

On target2

Corners

Liverpool14Brentford2

Fouls

Liverpool9Brentford8

Lineups

• 1R. Alisson
• 17C. Jones
• 5I. Konate
• 4V. van Dijk
• 26A. Robertson
• 38R. Gravenberch
• 10A. Mac Allister
• 11M. Salah
• 8D. Szoboszlai
• 73R. Ngumoha
• 18C. Gakpo

• 1C. Kelleher
• 33M. Kayode
• 4S. van den Berg
• 22N. Collins
• 23K. Lewis-Potter
• 6J. Henderson
• 27V. Janelt
• 19D. Ouattara
• 8M. Jensen
• 7K. Schade
• 9I. Thiago

Substitutes

• 25G. Mamardashvili
• 2J. Gomez89
• 3W. Endo
• 6M. Kerkez83
• 7F. Wirtz73
• 9A. Isak
• 14F. Chiesa
• 30J. Frimpong74
• 42T. Nyoni83

• 12H. Valdimarsson
• 2A. Hickey60
• 5E. Pinnock
• 10J. Dasilva
• 11R. Nelson89
• 20K. Ajer
• 24M. Damsgaard83
• 45R. Donovan
• 47K. Furo

THE GUARDIAN

I’m utterly devastated and have already shed tears,” says Manchester City fan Sophie Hope. There is a feeling of loss around the Etihad Stadium, a bereavement that everyone knew was coming but it does not make it any easier to take. The ownership may disagree but this is the club that Pep Guardiola built over the past 10 years and everyone in attendance against Aston Villa wanted to pay their respects.

This has been a glorious epoch for the club, one that has seen complete and utter misery in modern times. Relegation to the third tier at Stoke, being regularly pummelled by Manchester United and York City away are long forgotten. The transformation was under way before Guardiola arrived a decade ago and everything has been geared towards his demands and needs. Ilkay Gündogan, Ederson and Fernandinho were back as City’s greatest hits were played.

“To say City is part of my DNA is not overstating it,” Hope says. “I feel I need to try and remember that it’s football but it’s also not just football, it’s family, it’s special and Pep has brought such a huge level of enjoyment, excitement, joy and pride to our club.

“I’ve been going to City for 36 years and our next manager will be the first my dad won’t have known, he died in 2021. I have to remind myself of all the good times. The happiness Pep has brought to me, my life, to Manchester will never be replicated or forgotten.”

Guardiola created a magical mystical tour for City, taking the masses on triumphant tours to Real Madrid and a plethora of other of Europe’s most historical venues, leaving having not just won but shown complete dominance. None will be more memorable than Istanbul, City’s first Champions League trophy, won thanks to Rodri on an edgy night against Inter.

“Pep took us into a footballing galaxy that only a handful of teams in world football will ever experience,” Andy Hooper says. “I think back to watching hundreds of games at Maine Road with my grandad. Together we never even reached a major semi-final, but did witness us dropping to League One. He always told me we’d be back one day, and I believed him. Fast forward to the pinnacle of the Pep era: taking my seven-year-old lad to Istanbul to watch us complete the treble.

“Pep’s not just been our manager he’s all of us, you can tell he feels it, he loves the place, sticks up for us against anything thrown at us, he will be for ever our boss. He completed our journey from the Peter Swales lows to the ridiculous highs.”

Success changes lives, even if it is enjoyed vicariously through the local football club. Guardiola has improved the existence of tens of thousands, finding joy in the style and trophy lifts. Everyone has embraced the “Catalan Manc”, enjoying his love of the city, living in the centre of it, becoming friends with the Gallagher brothers and references to local culture.

“People called Mourinho the special one, but he’s got nothing on Pep,” says Hope. “He clearly loves Manchester, embracing it as his city. That’s how we feel about Pep, he’s our Pep.”

Many of those in love with Guardiola will get to sit in the newly expanded North Stand named in his honour, helping secure a record Etihad Stadium attendance of 60,332, a fitting way to go out. It was unveiled on Sunday while a statue will be erected somewhere in the vicinity to immortalise the immortal to ensure that some things are eternal.

All the Guardiola collectibles were on sale, from flags to scarves and plenty in between, while one group in the East Stand stood resplendent in T-shirts spelling out “Gracies Pep” to show their appreciation in his native Catalan. A mural depicting Guardiola now sits resplendent on the side of a house opposite the ground but there is no chance of him being forgotten.

Fans will probably be clubbing together to see if they can find the land of the coconuts where Guardiola will be sunning himself over the summer. At the very least, they initiated Guardiola’s new life with the palm trees by bouncing beach balls around the stands.

Guardiola should have brought his own tissues, with eyes watering when he embraced another departing legend, Bernardo Silva, after bringing the captain off. Without a handkerchief in sight, Guardiola was forced to use his Pep-branded T-shirt to wipe away the tears.

The Portuguese was given a standing ovation and guard of honour from the two teams and it seemed to finally dawn on Guardiola when he embraced a man who has provided immaculate service for nine seasons. Shortly afterwards John Stones got the same combination of standing ovation and guard of honour.

“We’ve got Guardiola,” rang out repeatedly as the head coach absorbed it for one final time, weeping. The Blue Moon has reached its highest under Guardiola, and it will rise again at Manchester City but it will never shine as bright. Guardiola finished with: “In the next years, if you see me in the States or Europe or somewhere and you are a Man City fan, come and hug me. I will need it.” So will they.

The Guardian

Over the next few days, something unusual will be happening across Spanish soccer. Nearly 40 men’s professional clubs in La Liga’s top two divisions will take to the field wearing retro-looking uniforms inspired by their respective histories. The kits were first unveiled at Madrid Fashion Week and are part of a campaign celebrating the country’s love for the sport. It is a fitting prelude.

Ten weeks later, the largest World Cup in history will be held across the US, Canada and Mexico — 48 teams, 104 matches, the most expansive commercial stage the sport has ever assembled. And many players will be wearing nostalgia-laden gear: Adidas recently unveiled new away kits embracing a “90s aesthetic” but designed in a “modern, contemporary way.” They will also bear the brand’s famous trefoil motif — for the first time in more than three decades.

The past is no longer just being collected, but worn, remade and reimagined.

The shirts that changed everything

To understand how soccer arrived here, you have to go further back than expected. “Proper fan replica shirts weren’t widely available until the 1970s,” said Alex Ireland, author of “Pretty Poly: The History of the Football Shirt.” “It was really only in the nineties where they became more broadly acceptable to go to the pub in.

Umbro’s England away shirt for Euro 96 arguably led the shift from uniform to everyday wear. The two-tone blue striped shirt was designed to pair with jeans — an early acknowledgement that the its life extended beyond the pitch. Technology did the rest. Advances in fabric printing allowed designers to embed complex graphics directly onto material, turning shirts into moving canvases. The result was the most visually inventive decade in the sport’s sartorial history.

“Everyone remembers their first World Cup,” said Sam Handy, General Manager of Football at Adidas. “Those kits get embedded in your memory structures — this is what football looks like.”

Mine was Italia 90 and the West Germany home shirt (pictured at the top) — black, red and gold geometric abstraction across the chest — what remains the holy grail among collectors. Norwegian collector Even Nesset describes something close to involuntary recall: “That shirt gives me a kind of false memory of 1990 — from seeing it, from watching YouTube clips of it being worn on the pitch.” England’s third shirt from the same year — sky blue with distinct geometric patterns, and inseparable from New Order’s hit song “World in Motion” — is listed on Cult Kits’ for $480.

While England didn’t wear the shirt on the pitch itself, its fan favorite status and the team’s semi-final run and subsequent penalty shootout defeat to West Germany, who would go on to win the World Cup, helped ensured its legacy, alongside the more classic white home shirt.

“When a brand takes risks in design and embeds it with a decent run for the team, you have a chance of creating something very visually sticky,” said Handy. Nesset distills it further, classifying “the crazy shirts, bold enough to seem wrong at first (USA 1994, Jamaica 1998, Mexico 1998), and the beautiful shirts, quietly perfect (Colombia 1990, Italy 1994).”

Those shirts spent decades in the margins — traded through flea markets and early eBay. Then, over the past two decades, something structural happened. Dedicated platforms — Classic Football Shirts, Cult Kits, Vintage Football Shirts, Saturdays Football and others — transformed an informal network into a scaled, trusted, global market. Founded by fans who couldn’t find the shirts they wanted, they built what they needed, evolving passion projects into lucrative businesses.

David Jones, co-founder of Cult Kits, describes a buyer base that has transformed. “Seventy percent buy for nostalgia — the players you pretended to be growing up. The rest have discovered soccer kits in a fashion sense.”

But this movement runs deeper than celebrity adoption. Psychologist Clay Routledge calls it “historical nostalgia” — a documented longing for eras you never inhabited. His research found 68% of Gen Z adults experience it, and far from being regressive, he argues it is future-oriented: a way of resolving present dissatisfaction by reaching toward something that feels more real. Football shirts are not alone in this. “It’s the same reason we see 100 different Marvel films,” Ireland explained, “you’ve got instant buy-in, a connection that means you don’t need to figure out if you like it. From rebooted franchises, fashion houses mining their archives and generation alpha raised on blended noughties pop, the same force is reshaping culture more broadly.

Cultural critic Simon Reynolds describes the broader condition as “Retromania” — we live in a state of atemporality where 1994 and 2026 exist on the same screen simultaneously. The World Cup crystallizes this. Each tournament is a sealed, re-watchable world — a month of soccer frozen in time. A generation that wasn’t alive for France 98 can spend a weekend inside it on YouTube, emerging with genuine emotional attachments to objects they never encountered in real time.

The summer everything arrives at once

“This is a defining era of soccer culture,” said Handy, “and the jersey is perhaps its clearest expression.” The trefoil — last seen on a World Cup shirt in 1990 — has recently appeared on special edition shirts and now, 25 World Cup competition kits.“We’re just trying to do it all — the past and the future — and letting it all exist at the same time,” Handy added.

Mat Davis, founder of Saturdays Football, has watched the arc from the inside. As the vintage market for men’s soccer jerseys commoditized beneath him — “you search by price, not ‘wow, that’s a unique shirt’” — he pivoted toward original product and, most recently, a partnership with Adidas, embroidering mini versions of the newly released away shirts onto Saturdays Football’s signature caps. Amplification for him, authenticity for Adidas.

Nowhere is that more resonant than with the then-divisive, now cult-classic Adidas-designed US men’s national team’s (USMNT) 94 away shirt. That shirt — a washed-denim effect with diagonally placed white stars — was reportedly met with silence when Adidas first unveiled it to the squad, followed by nervous laughter. Retailers were equally unsure, yet all 50,000 replica kits produced were sold. The bold design would eventually stand the test of time, partly because the team surprised many by reaching the round of 16, wearing the jersey during some of their biggest tournament moments. More than three decades later, the brand has recentlyreleased a lifestyle collection of jerseys, jackets, shorts, hats and even a pair of Samba trainers basedon the memorable design. Nike, who have dressed the team since 1995, designed its 2026 kits in close collaboration with players. They will be worn by all 27 US Soccer teams — men’s, women’s and youth — unifying players under one cohesive, visual identity for the first time. In some ways, the curvy red and white stripes have a similarly bold, visual language to those scattered stars of the Adidas 1994 shirt.

Rather than legacy, Handy says design becomes aninfinite loop: iconic styles becoming part of the visual canon, to be drawn from in perpetuity.

This summer, that loop closes on home soil. Major League Soccer, founded in 1993 as part of the US’ bid to host its first World Cup the following year, has helped the sport reportedly overtake baseball as America’s third favorite sport, according to a survey by The Economist. The World Cup returns not to a country where professional soccer is a novelty, but to one that has quietly, irreversibly, made the game its own.

USMNT midfielder Tyler Adams put the stakes plainly: “I want to have that kit you look back at in 30 years and you’re like, that’s still the best one.” This summer, someone in the crowd will be wearing a vintage jersey from 1994 or a reissue, while others will be wearing updated ones designed to be coveted decades later.

Inside the collar of Belgium’s Adidas away shirt, a hidden line of text aptly reads: “Ceci n’est pas un maillot.” This is not a jersey. Well, not just a jersey anymore.

CNN