Review
Books
Culture
Football
Sport
5 min read

The book to help you fall back in love with football

Neil Atkinson’s Transformer isn’t the straightforward biography of Jurgen Klopp.
A fan holds an upside down football scrarf that reads 'Juergen is a red'.
Fan fervour, Anfield.
Lloyd Kearney on Unsplash.

Transformer is a fun book. I don’t mean to sound trite, or to damn with faint praise when I say that. I mean it. Transformer is a fun book, and frankly too many books I read aren’t fun.  

David Foster Wallace used to say something similar (yes, the same David Foster Wallace whose novel Infinite Jest is over a thousand pages and has actual honest-to-god endnotes): much of contemporary print media has lost its ability to be fun. And isn’t that what we’re in this for anyway? 

And that is, I think, why Transformer feels like such a relief, honestly. None of the trademark scouse humour and levity that has made The Anfield Wrap such a successful and appealing football podcast is lost in the transition to text. It is a funny book. It is a fun book. 

Of course, there’s a lot here that you might expect to find in a book about Klopp, too, like discussions of key games throughout Klopp’s time at Liverpool. There’s also lots of what Atkinson does best: insightful and thoughtful reflection on the nature of contemporary football. Whether this is the nature of tickets and ticket prices, the state of TV football punditry, or why Liverpool fans (generally) don’t sing the national anthem, there’s much here for football fans and non-football fans alike to mull over and learn from.  

But it’s also worth noting what’s not in the book. There’s no real prolonged deep dive into Klopp’s personality here. I don’t say that as a criticism, more as a matter of expectation-management for potential readers. This isn’t a biography or a character study, although there are elements of this, for example, in the chapter on Klopp’s ongoing footballing rivalry with Pep Guardiola.  

Whole pages, even chapters pass without Klopp being mentioned. If you’re going into Transformer hoping to learn about Klopp’s upbringing, his playing career, his faith, you’ll likely be disappointed. But that’s fine, because Transformer isn’t that book. 

So much of the book is awash with the warmth of friendship and humour and life. 

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Transformer is not a book about Jürgen Klopp. Obviously, ostensibly it is. Klopp’s tenure at Liverpool drives the book forward; provides its pulse. But this doesn’t explain why there is a whole chapter on the meaninglessness of football without Divock Origi. And it doesn’t explain the inclusion of sentences like the following: “27 November 2019: Knives Out is released, meaning Sadio Mané has competition for most flamboyant performance from a Liverpudlian in a calendar year.” 

But it’s not even really a book about Liverpool, or football in general. Or Benoit Blanc. It’s a book about fun. About joy. About life, why it matters, why it’s good, and why it’s better with others.  

It’s really a book about love. About loving a football club and loving and being loved by others in the midst of loving that football club.  

Atkinson states up front that this book is about the people he has known and loved during Klopp’s time at Liverpool. It’s his version of this story. But in being his version, he allows it to be my version, too, and yours. “I am going to refer to people and places you may not know and we may not always trouble ourselves with descriptions. You don’t need to worry. That’s because these people, they are your friends. They are you.” 

And this is why the book’s most emotionally fraught moments hit as hard as they do; because so much of the book is awash with the warmth of friendship and humour and life. When moments do stand out in stark relief from the very fun and love that Transformer is keen on have us believe in, they thereby make the case for their importance all the more clearly. 

An insistence of the fundamental unseriousness of football is an act of gleeful rebellion. It is to play a different game. 

Much has been said about Covid and football under Covid. Atkinson’s compassionate, understated treatment of it is genuinely beautiful at times. “People pass away, unmoored from time, separated from loves ones in the grimmest circumstances, and no one quite knows what to do.”  

When reading Atkinson’s memories of the inner turmoil of his last interview with Klopp – “It was hard because I wanted to talk to him. At him. With him. I just wanted to list all these things has been part of with us, but, of course, he is more interested in you, in your world” – it’s hard not to be transported back to the sheer shock of his abrupt leaving.  

In case it’s somehow not clear yet, let me state it here: I think Neil Atkinson is one the most compelling and insightful thinkers in and around modern football. This is in large part because of his insistence on what many forget: football is a game. It is supposed to be fun. It is supposed to be a fun game you enjoy with your mates.  

We are in a world of nation-states and quasi-nation-states acquiring football clubs for political purposes. One with relentless discourse about the minutiae of every refereeing decision. A world where there is a constant, low-level feeling that I am yet again being ripped-off and taken advantage of for having the audacity to want to watch a football match. So, an insistence of the fundamental unseriousness of football is an act of gleeful rebellion. It is to play a different game.  

“I don’t see anywhere near enough people writing about happiness in general, especially within the realm of football where grumpiness has become the order of the day.” Transformer is the apotheosis of modern footballing grumpiness. It is sincere, and earnest, and vulnerable. And I love it for this.  

If you are looking for a comprehensive biography of Klopp, this isn’t it. This is something better.  

When I spoke to him about Transformer, Atkinson said he wanted the book to show that football fans were normal, complex people. That they were accountants from Altringham, and theologians from Liverpool (if we can count theologians as ‘normal’ people). Transformer absolutely bristles with humanity. 

Humans were made for community, for mates, for each other, and for last-minute Divock Origi winners. Humans were made for football.  

If you want to remember why you fell in love with football – or if you want to understand why others fall in love with it – I can’t think of a better book to read than Transformer

Article
Character
Culture
Film & TV
Purpose
6 min read

Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt offers a blueprint for life

The latest in the Mission:Impossible franchise dares to ask some surprisingly existential questions

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Tom Cruise runs.
What happens we he stops running?

When it comes to action movies, most of us aren’t looking for philosophical musings as much as a dose of adrenaline-fuelled escapist entertainment. Few franchises understand this better than  Mission: Impossible, which has consistently delivered on that front—train wrecks, car chases, gun battles, bomb blasts, submarine fights, knife fights, fist fights, dog fights, and, of course, running. Lots of running. 

The latest blockbuster in the franchise, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning — which Tom Cruise has suggested may be his last outing as Ethan Hunt — is no exception. But alongside its brilliantly choreographed action scenes, the film also dares to ask some surprisingly existential questions. 

Who wants to live forever? 

Tom Cruise has achieved legendary status not just for his acting, but for his relentless dedication to performing the most technically demanding stunts in cinema history. Over the years, he’s scaled the Burj Khalifa, clung to the side of a plane during take-off, parachuted from 25,000 feet, flown helicopters through perilous terrain, and held his breath underwater for more than six minutes—without a stunt double in sight. 

Now 62, Cruise would be forgiven for taking it easier. Instead, after performing in what one director has called the most ambitious stunt in cinematic history: launching a motorcycle off a cliff, a mid-air dismount, followed by a parachute drop in the previous movie, Cruise has upped the ante again by engaging in an aerial battle atop a biplane flying at 10,000 feet. This involved climbing onto the wing of a moving aircraft travelling at 145 mph enduring hurricane-force winds, while the pilot performed manoeuvres designed to dislodge him. 

Cruise has become something of a cultural symbol of immortality. His character, Ethan Hunt, continually evades death, rarely stopping to mourn the losses of others—even those closest to him. But this film feels different. It asks how long someone—real or fictional—can continue to outrun death. 

Watching Hunt - and Cruise - cheat death time and again may be entertaining, but it also taps into something deeper. A recent COMRES survey revealed that the top four human fears are all death-related: dying in pain (83 per cent), dying alone (67 per cent), being told they’re dying (62 per cent), and dying in hospital (59 per cent). Final Reckoning doesn't just distract us from these fears—it subtly forces us to confront them. No matter how fast, fit, or famous we are, none of us gets out alive. 

What is life really about? 

Because the line between Ethan Hunt and Tom Cruise is now so thin, Dead Reckoning plays almost like a eulogy to both. The film opens with a message of thanks from the President of the United States: 

“Good evening, Ethan. This is your President. Since you won't reply to anyone else, I thought I'd reach out directly. First, I want to thank you for a lifetime of devoted and unrelenting service… Every risk you've taken, every comrade you've lost, every personal sacrifice you’ve made, has brought this world another sunrise.” 

The sentiment feels a little self-indulgent. The camera rarely leaves Cruise, and nearly everything and everyone else feels like a garnish to his character. He gets the best lines, the best cars, the best love interests, the best scenes. At times, Dead Reckoning feels a little like Mamma Mia! — a loose thread of a plot connecting a series of spectacular set-pieces rather than musical numbers. 

Still, as the franchise nears its end, it’s bittersweet to say goodbye to a character who’s become part of global popular culture. And it prompts a deeper question: If we can’t look back on our lives and say we gave the world another sunrise, what does make a life well-lived—for those of us who don’t defuse nuclear bombs before breakfast? What have we personally sacrificed for the greater good?  

Who Is expendable? 

With a body count hovering around 500, the Mission:Impossible series has never shied away from collateral damage. Ethan Hunt has always been portrayed as someone willing to expense the few to save the many. 

But The Final Reckoning confronts that idea. It reintroduces William Donloe, a minor character from the original 1996 film, who was the CIA analyst that got reassigned to a remote outpost in the Bering Sea after Hunt famously infiltrated his high-security vault - in that iconic scene where Cruise is suspended from the ceiling, inches above a pressure-sensitive floor, and drops his commando knife, point-first, into the desk. Now, decades later, Hunt seeks him out to apologise. 

Surprisingly, Donloe responds with grace. He says the reassignment was the best thing that ever happened to him: it led him to meet the love of his life. Though he had lost everything in a house fire caused by Hunt’s team, he had managed to salvage the commando knife from the original vault heist and gives it back to Hunt as a token of his appreciation. 

This could have been a moment of genuine reflection for Hunt—a chance to reckon with the unintended consequences of his actions. Instead, it serves to reinforce the idea that even Hunt’s mistakes are somehow for the best. Hunt is presented as almost messianic—an infallible saviour whose instincts are always right. 

But this portrayal contrasts sharply with the biblical Messiah, who taught that no one is expendable. In Jesus’ teaching, every life matters, enemies are to be loved, and compassion is both the means and the end. The ends never justify the means. Love is the mission. 

Who Is my neighbour? 

One of the deeper themes of the film is the tension between loyalty to those closest to us and responsibility to the wider world. Hunt’s enemies consistently try to exploit his love for friends and family, exposing it as a vulnerability. On a number of occasions, the villains kidnap or threaten someone close to Hunt in order to manipulate him. He is faced with the dilemma - to save the one he loves, or to save everyone else? 

At one point, a character offers this reflection: 

“We all share the same fate—the same future. The sum of our infinite choices. One such future is built on kindness, trust, and mutual understanding, should we choose to accept it. Driving without question toward a light we cannot see. Not just for those we hold close, but for those we’ll never meet.” 

It’s a powerful line—one that challenges narrow tribalism in favour of a universal compassion. In recent years, some have tried to co-opt Christian ethics in support of nationalism, prioritising loyalty to family, faith, and country above all else. But this film’s ethos cuts across that narrative. 

In an age of toxic patriotism and growing division, it’s striking that an international superspy like Ethan Hunt seems to offer a profoundly global vision: act not only for those we love, but for the good of the whole world—even at great personal cost. 

Hunt’s worldview echoes a deeply biblical theology: every person has worth, and we’re called to love our neighbour—including those who don’t speak our language or share our culture. The franchise promotes a genuine Christian ethic of sacrificial love. And why not? At the heart of Christianity is the story of a God who sent His Son on a seemingly impossible mission to save the world. 

It’s hard to miss the moral and theological framework that underpins Final Reckoning. It is, perhaps, this foundation that makes Ethan Hunt’s character not only thrilling but deeply human. Amid the explosions, stunts, and spectacle, Mission: Impossible makes us think, and subtly reminds us that the greatest mission of all might be love. 

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