Thank you for proving my point.
You have a point, but I think you re missing something because of your perspective as an American. Americans for the most part tend to support their home teams; most importantly they expect their team to have a shot at winning the title. Not consistently, not every year, but at least a few times during their lifetimes. It's a strangely egalitarian, almost socialist conception of sports. The reality is quite different in almost every other league in the world.
When I was growing up in Greece, it was taken as a given that there were 3-4 teams that were going to win a title and that's the way it was. I can't speak for everyone, but I think that even if you were living in a small regional town, sure you might root for the local team, but you were also rooting for one of the big ones. You really had to, if you wanted to have a rooting interest with a shot at the title.
How did I pick my team? Well, first of all, soccer was considered by default the one and only major sport, kinda like water in a sense. (later basketball became big, but soccer is what was for breakfast, lunch and dinner). In the 70s and 80s, Greek league games were not shown on TV, only highlights every Sunday night, a night which as you can imagine was as special as it got. You could watch Greek teams however live when they played European football, a usually short-lived affair as they tended to get knocked out in the first or second round. Again, this meant of course, only the top teams. One day at the tender age of 5 or 6, all three major teams were shown on our black and white TV. My parents weren't big sports fans, so they didn't steer me in any direction. For me, decision was easy. I hated white shorts, so that immediately took Panathinaikos and Olympiacos out. I liked the white shirt/black shorts combo, so it was AEK Athens. It was a bit of an unpleasant surprise when I went to a store to get one of their shirts only to discover that their shirt was actually yellow. I didn't particularly like yellow! However, I tend to be stubborn and loyal, so I made my choice and stuck with it.
I am not sure what kind of expectations English soccer fans have; I think there's a few obvious differences with Greeks. Soccer is even more ingrained in social fabric and the bonds with the local team are more tribal than most of other places. I do think however, that because in England there's also only a few teams that can win the title, fans of smaller teams adjust their expectations. Staying at top flight, having a good season here and there, earning qualification for Europe is the kind of goals that keep people content. Yeah, it's an unfair system, but if that's what things are like, if that's how things are, that's what people know and they live with it.
So, how did I start rooting for Liverpool? Well, Greek soccer matches may not have been shown on tv, but the highlight packages shown on Sundays contained footage from all leagues abroad. English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and French, we knew and followed what everyone was doing. Most importantly, every Saturday, there was an English league match of the day. Liverpool were dominant at the time, so they were shown a lot, but following the common sense criteria I had adopted as a 6 year old is what led me to my choice. Hating white shorts precluded Manchester United, Everton, Arsenal; I liked the red on red combo, so Liverpool it was!
For the same reason, I was rooting for Bayern Munich, but I never really developed a bond with them. It was different with Liverpool though. As a 10 year old I remember having a small ball and playing pretend soccer matches in our house; I knew by heart Liverpool's lineup and I played as them for hours. Without looking, I can still name some players from those mid-eighties teams: Gropelaar, Lawrenson, Nichols, Hansen, Souness, Dalglish, Rush.
As years went by, I grew up and my criteria changed. One thing I dislike is frontrunning. I just don't find any enjoyment in rooting for a team that's expected to buy the best players and win the title every year. It's a spoiled existence. Let's say you root for Real Madrid. They buy the best players, they win every year. Yawn. There's no pain. There's no longing. There's no sense of loss and incompleteness. There's no serious head scratching trying to find value with a relatively constrained budget. Just a mindless rah rah rah, we re no 1. It's like being Paris Hilton. Sure, you have everything, but you didn't earn anything; how can you savor success if you haven't experienced failure in your bones? Instead, I like the journey. I like a team that has a shot at the title, but needs to make adjustments, make progress towards their goal and in the process overcome obstacles and adversity. That's why I stopped rooting for Bayern Munich and started rooting for Dortmund which has the same colors as AEK for example.
Truth be told, fandom is a fluid experience. Most people pretend that they root for the same team with the same passion year in, year out, but that happens only for a few. People's rooting interests fluctuate IMO. One year it's football, another year it's baseball another year it's soccer and so on. I know from myself that as I came to the States and following European sports was tougher, I switched focus on American sports. First the Celtics, then the Pats and the Sox. Because I liked the journey, I followed the Sox intently until they won, but then with my title thirst satiated my focus switched elsewhere.
Around that time, proper football started being shown on TV. Throughout the years, I casually followed premier league standings. I was kinda annoyed that Liverpool didn't seem to win year in and out but that was also what was attractive about them. The new economics of football that gave a boost to teams coming from big metropolitan cities along with teams that enjoyed access to oligarchs' money had turned Liverpool into underdogs. We could still contend, but we were 4th or 5th best in terms of finances. Sure, we were not left behind by the new economic structures like Leeds or Derby County, but we had and have an uphill road to climb.
That's what makes it interesting to me. Add the fact that we were blessed to play positive, creative football under Rogers and Klopp often finding ourselves scoring 4, but conceding 3 and it's a fun ride being a Liverpool fan these days.