Simon Hughes - Allez Allez Allez

SECRET DIARY OF A LIVERPOOL SCOUT

RED MACHINE

MEN IN WHITE SUITS

RING OF FIRE

ON THE BRINK

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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright Simon Hughes 2019
Cover photographs: Front Xinhua News Agency/PA Images; back Barrington Coombs/PA Wire/PA Images
Cover design by Rhys Willson/TW

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ISBN 9781473572744

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In memory of the 96
and those who have
suffered ever since

Divock Origi had not played for Liverpool in a league game for nearly sixteen months and hed not scored for the club in nineteen months. While Liverpool surged towards the Champions League final in 201718 he was on loan at Wolfsburg, where just six goals in 34 appearances were indicative of a torturous campaign. The team only remained in the Bundesliga through a relegation play-off and he was once substituted in the first half of a game against Hoffenheim. When he came back to Melwood in the summer of 2018, Liverpool fielded offers from Wolverhampton Wanderers and Huddersfield Town. Jrgen Klopp, Liverpools manager, tried to encourage him to try the latter, where his friend David Wagner was in charge. Another loan might just have reignited his career but Origi did not believe another fight against relegation was in his best interests. Then, right at the end of the summer transfer window, Everton came in: a permanent deal to cross Stanley Park. At the right price, Origi might have gone. But he stayed and decided to fight for his place.

Origi, whose parents came from Kenya to Belgium in 1992 when his father, also a centre-forward, signed for KV Oostende, was considering his options again by the start of December. In the intervening three months hed made just one Liverpool appearance as a substitute in the humbling defeat at Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League, a result which complicated Liverpools qualification for the knock-out stages. The winter transfer window posed possibilities of routes out of Merseyside altogether and possibly back to France where Marseille as well as AS Monaco were monitoring his situation. Origi, though, did not want it to end like this for him in England, where his career had seemed so promising following Klopps appointment in October 2015 a manager who had wanted to sign him in his previous role at Borussia Dortmund. In early 2016 Origi had become Liverpools first-choice centre-forward and he was scoring goals, many of them important. Then, wham! A red-card tackle in the Merseyside derby from Ramiro Funes Mori ended his season early. While he missed the Europa League final through a serious ankle injury, Liverpool missed him too. His form then had been outstanding according to Klopp; form he was unable to rediscover, which explained why Wolfsburg a club usually in Germanys top six seemed a sensible temporary solution.

Origi is intelligent, speaking four languages including Swahili, French and Flemish. He is also introspective and he was hurting. He assessed himself what could he do better to get himself back into Klopps thinking? Hed have been a psychologist if he wasnt a footballer. He is a keen observer of peoples reactions to situations good and bad his teammates reactions, even his own. Hed encouraged his friends to do personality tests and watched a lot of TED TV. He came to realize that as much as he could talk through his concerns with Klopp a manager he related to because of their shared emotional intelligence the only way of getting back in the team was to train hard.

The opening months of Liverpools season had been a slog: winning regularly in the league but hardly impressively. An optimist would say they were grinding results out; a realist would say they needed a shot of adrenaline to get the players moving faster, more convincingly.

On Sunday, 2 December the Merseyside derby was heading towards a draw. Evertons supporters in the Anfield Road end had sent a blue flare onto the pitch in celebration. Though it meant Evertons record at Anfield included no victories in twenty years, their joy, to some extent, was understandable. The result would have sent Liverpool four points behind Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table. A small victory.

With ten minutes to go Klopp turned back to his assistant Peter Krawietz. He was becoming desperate. They talked for ninety seconds and then the call came for Origi, who was warming up near the Kop. There was hardly a sense of anticipation that something remarkable was going to happen when he went on at Roberto Firminos expense, the teams first-choice centre-forward. The groan that followed was enormous. Virgil van Dijk the worlds most expensive defender ballooned a volley high into the night. It was the 96th minute and Liverpools last chance of a goal had been spurned. The sound of plastic seats being tipped up and left was audible. The Evertonians in the distance cheered. But then, something outrageous happened. The ball plummeted from the sky. Evertons England international goalkeeper Jordan Pickford was watching it all the way. It came down fast, through the glare of the floodlights. It seemed like it might tip the top of the crossbar and bounce into the Kop. But Pickford couldnt be sure. His fingertips touched the ball and it rolled down the woodwork. Evertons defenders had stopped. Origi had not. Pandemonium.

Six months later Mohamed Salah entered the Anfield pitch wearing a dark t-shirt emblazoned with the words: NEVER GIVE UP. He had missed Liverpools 40 victory over Barcelona which sent them through to their second Champions League final in as many seasons because of a head injury sustained at Newcastle, where Divock Origis headed goal in injury time kept Liverpools domestic title ambitions alive. Three nights after that Origi would score twice against the Spanish champions to help overturn a three-goal first-leg deficit. Salah and certainly Origi had never given up, but neither had any of their teammates, spurred on by their inspirational leader, Jrgen Klopp, whose own life story and career path had been underpinned by struggle, glory, disappointment and recovery.

Klopp had begun the 201819 season with questions still to answer. He had built Liverpool up during his two and a half seasons at the club but was yet to win a trophy. He had promised to bring silverware by his fourth year at the very latest, and those doubting him claimed he was the worlds greatest cheerleader all he really did was hug his players and make them feel better. Would that translate into palpable football success?