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What is the purest and most dizzying feeling of emotion you have felt when seeing a new signing come out in the Liverpool shirt for the first time?
Perhaps there is some element of recent bias at play here, but I am struggling to look beyond Thiago Alcântara in response to that particular question. We saw Fernando Torres and Luis Suárez transform from very, very good players when they first became authentic and proven scouts of the world during their time in Liverpool. Sadio Mané, Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, meanwhile, rose from players with potential for greatness to true all-time greats.
With Thiago, however, he has already scaled all the highest peaks. For most of the last decade, he has been one of the best players in the world at his position. Right now, at the peak of his powers, he could be he best central midfielder of his kind on the planet. There is a strong argument that it can be argued that he is the highest-profile signing Liverpool have ever made, certainly this century.
So after two and a half months of endless back-and-forth speculation as to whether Bayern Munich’s move would actually materialize, and to the incredibly catchy tune of Cuba per the Gibson brothers soundtrack with a glorious 48 hours since the news broke Thursday, seeing the man at Stamford Bridge in the number 6 jersey with those gleaming gold championship badges on the sleeves felt almost surreal.
It has become common to ask the question when a player from Europe with a considerable reputation arrives: how they will adapt to the Premier League? For Thiago, the response was about 30 seconds. If that.
Of course, stepping into the fray against 10 men was the ideal setting for bed, but nonetheless, it was surprising how perfectly the role fit and wore, supremely dictating the tempo and orchestrating the events around him like the metronome everyone we knew it would be. While their arrival is exciting from an outside perspective, one can only imagine how excited their teammates will be playing alongside them.
You can rarely see a player so silky in everything he does, so aesthetically pleasing to the eye. At the risk of skimming the territory of clichés, it is almost like watching an artist and a soccer player, effortlessly stroking the painting on the grass canvas with each of their passes.
And passing it did. In fact, 75 times, setting a new record for any player who has played a maximum of 45 minutes in the Premier League since passing statistics were available in 2003/04. Unsurprisingly, it was also more than any Chelsea player recorded in 90 minutes.
Nor was it just passing by. Here, for example, the simple pass is sideways to Fabinho. In fact, Thiago’s body shape suggests that this is exactly where he is aiming. But instead, he shoots it between the lines directly at Salah’s feet, and in doing so he completely splits Chelsea’s midfield.
He did something similar later, this time in the way that he would simply roll the ball to Trent Alexander-Arnold. Once again he throws him forward, this time to Gini Wijnaldum, thus knocking N’Golo Kante, Ross Barkley and Tammy Abraham out of the game. It’s a subtle difference that it will make in Liverpool’s accumulated game from the back, but one that can have a substantial impact in terms of quickly transitioning onto the field and finding Liverpool’s attackers with an empty space to run.
This was not a truly spectacular performance by Thiago, it is worth saying, and more rigorous testing awaits us. As Jürgen Klopp mentioned after the game, it will take some time for him to be fully in tune with the specific defensive requirements of his role, because Liverpool play in a substantially different way than Bayern with and especially without the ball. That will come in the next few weeks.
The penalty incident aside, and it was a tough one, which Alisson later rendered irrelevant anyway, it was a tantalizing first outing from a player who only had one session at Melwood to catch up and be ready to contribute in a match. of such meaning.
With Liverpool sailing comfortably to victory, there was a moment in the 90th minute when he pressured Kante into conceding a throw-in and proceeded to thump his chest loudly in celebration, also accepting a high-five from James Milner for your efforts. On one of the few occasions when he missed a pass, he berated himself for doing it. Because those are the standards that he sets.
It was clear, right there, why Thiago had come to Liverpool at this point in his career. He had a lucrative new contract in front of him at Bayern, where he could easily have continued to rack up guaranteed coverage for years to come. Instead, he chose to embark on this new challenge, because he wanted to prove himself in a different environment and expand his legacy. He came to Liverpool as a champion and he intends to keep it that way.
It will be a pleasure to see him grow and evolve as an integral part of this Liverpool team as they write a new chapter together, this season and beyond. And the best part is that the fun has only just begun.
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