Image Credits: Imago Images
There was a moment in the post-match interview that said more than any stat could.
Cody Gakpo, fresh from a stunning double in the Netherlands’ 5-1 demolition of Sweden in Houston, was asked to explain the gap between his World Cup self and his Liverpool self.
He started to answer.
“It’s a little bit different,”
Then he stopped.
“How I play here, where the coach wants me to be, the freedom that I have at the club,” he said, before catching himself mid-sentence.
“That’s it basically.”
That trailing off told a story Ronald Koeman could not have scripted better himself.
Nobody at Houston Stadium took more shots than Gakpo, who fired five efforts at goal across a performance that had the 27-year-old looking every inch the player Netherlands fans have always believed him to be.
His brace drew him level with Robin van Persie as the Netherlands’ most prolific scorer in World Cup group stage history, taking his tally to five goals in the competition’s group phase.
Gakpo prodded in from close range after a dangerous low cross from Dumfries for his first, then turned inside his defender and fired low into the bottom corner for a second seven minutes later.
Composed, clinical, and completely in control of his body.
The contrast with a Liverpool campaign that yielded just nine goals in 52 games was stark and impossible to ignore.
His overall international record underlines the point further.
Gakpo and Brian Brobbey became only the second pair of Dutch teammates to score multiple goals in a single World Cup match, contributing to a result that tied the most goals the Netherlands have ever scored in a single World Cup fixture.
None of this arrives out of nowhere.
In Qatar in 2022, Gakpo scored in all three group games.
The World Cup has consistently drawn out a version of him that Liverpool supporters have caught only glimpses of.
His 50 goals in 180 club appearances are the numbers of a useful squad player.
His 23 goals in 52 international appearances are the numbers of a genuine difference-maker.
The question now is whether Andoni Iraola, who inherits a Liverpool squad still adjusting to life after Arne Slot, can unlock the same thing Koeman has found.
Because what Gakpo almost said in that interview, before thinking better of it, is the most interesting transfer story of the summer.
Not who Liverpool are signing.
But whether the player they already have is being used properly.