Many of Liverpool’s best current players have taken a roundabout way to the top at Anfield.
The Reds are often noted for not buying superstars but creating them instead, and this often bears out in the career paths their players take.
Alisson Becker, for example, was not destined to be a top goalkeeper when he joined Roma in 2016.
Having already been called up to play for the Brazil national team, the 23-year-old Alisson was certainly a talent on the radar.
But, almost 24 when he arrived in Europe, he was not someone who had been marked from a very young age as being one to watch.
Even after joining Roma, Alisson was forced to spend a season deputising for first choice goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny. And while training alongside Liverpool’s future number one, Szczesny made a prescient claim about his younger teammate.
Photo by Luciano Rossi/AS Roma via Getty Images
Photo by Luciano Rossi/AS Roma via Getty Images
Wojciech Szczesny made bold Alisson Becker prediction
Looking back, it may seem strange that Szczesny was ever ahead of Alisson in the pecking order. The Pole has never reached the levels of Liverpool’s number one.
However, rewind to 2016 and Szczesny was just coming off the back of an excellent debut year at Roma.
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A young arrival from Internacional in Brazil was never going to be ahead of him straight away.
Nevertheless, Szczesny could clearly see the big talent within Alisson. As he posted on Instagram in January 2017, he viewed his deputy as being a future best in the world.
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“Training in the rain with Alisson Becker,” Szczesny posted along with a shot of the two players with arms around each other.
“Great guy and a fantastic goalkeeper! Soon to be one of the best in the world!”
Szczesny’s prediction comes true
Szczesny is of course a very good goalkeeper in his own right. Having chosen to retire in 2024, it says everything that he was called out of retirement to join Barcelona shortly after.
With Marc Andre Ter-Stegen injured, the former Arsenal keeper is now first choice at Camp Nou. If the stars align, he could even face Alisson in the Champions League final this year.
But as Alisson showed against PSG on Wednesday, he is simply a cut above. The 32-year-old has proven Szczesny absolutely right about him many times over.
He had to wait for his chance, but when the Poland international left for Juventus in 2017, Alisson took it and then some.
Perhaps he was not yet among the best in the world when he moved to Anfield a year later. But by 2019, he certainly was, scooping a raft of trophies and individual awards that very year. Can we have this weekend’s lottery numbers please, Wojciech?