“Corner taken quickly…”
At just 22 years of age, Liverpudlian Trent Alexander-Arnold has already reached the summit of club football. Liverpool fan Jake Clay explores his importance to the identity of the club and its city, and explains why he was the perfect choice for a mural on the streets of Anfield.
October 2020
Liverpool FC’s sixth European Cup win on 01 June 2019 proved to be a night of raw emotion for everyone involved with the club. Whether it was Virgil van Dijk collapsing on the ground at full time, Jordan Henderson sharing a sentimental embrace with his father, or Alisson Becker video calling his pregnant wife from the pitch, there was passionate relief all around Estadio Metropolitano in Madrid. But perhaps the picture of the night was of then 20-year-old Trent Alexander-Arnold admiring the UEFA Champions League trophy with his parents and two brothers (below). It was a moment that encapsulated the young full-back’s humility even in his greatest triumph.
Two months later, on the corner of Sybil Road and Anfield Road just two streets from the stadium itself, a two-storey mural was unveiled in dedication to Liverpool’s latest success, with the scouser in Jürgen Klopp’s side as its subject. The mural was painted by the French graffiti artist Akse, and funded by the influential The Anfield Wrap fan podcast to commemorate the club’s historic 2018-19 season. “After we won the Champions League, we wanted to do something to acknowledge the team and what they had done,” said John Gibbons, host of The Anfield Wrap. “The idea was to have something that would stay a bit longer and which pays tribute to Trent, but also to all of the team and everything they achieved.”
As a local lad from West Derby, Trent got the chance to visit the Liverpool FC Academy in Kirkby after his name was pulled out of a hat at St. Matthew Primary School to attend a coaching camp. It only took one training session before academy coach Ian Barrigan approached Trent’s mother and asked if her son could come back to train and play a few games for the club’s youth side. Next came the opportunity to work under Klopp’s current assistant manager, Pepijn Lijnders, in the academy’s under-16 and under-18 teams. Trent eventually made his first team debut at age 18 against Tottenham Hotspur in October 2016, and from that day on his career has been on a remarkable upward trajectory. He has started two successive Champions League finals (winning one of course), has been selected in the PFA Team of the Year twice and voted PFA Young Player of the Year for the 2019-20 season, and has now helped to land the holy grail of a first Premier League title in 30 years for his club.
“It’s the icing on the cake when you’ve got a lad from Liverpool who is a part of this great side”, says Gibbons. “It makes it that extra bit special to know he’s out there fulfilling all our dreams and doing what we would love to do. The way he speaks on a whole host of issues is very inspiring and commendable. Trent is not just an incredible footballer but an incredible young man as well. The city is lucky to have him.” Indeed, while Trent's actions on the field single him out as a top footballer, his selfless work within the community is what endears him to the people of Liverpool. He plays his part as ambassador for the An Hour for Others charity, and as a patron for Mandela8, a project looking to support community development in Toxteth.
Liverpool’s number 66 is vital proof that not every young English footballer automatically makes immature decisions that draw a negative spotlight. As Gibbons explains, Trent’s first thought when breaking into the senior squad was to help those less fortunate than himself: “Trent is very authentic, supporting charities that not many people know of. He has given his support to lots of things where he can see he can make a difference and he believes in what they are trying to do. He has always done his work in a genuine way; his agent has not gone out and organised it for him. And he has done it since minute one, as he thought that if he was able to make a breakthrough into the first team, he could make a difference. I can imagine that when he was a 15 or 16-year-old boy, he was not just dreaming about scoring the winning goal in front of the Kop but was thinking about helping people too. Because he has achieved so much and conducts himself so well, we forget how young he still is, meaning there is so much more to come from him in every sense.”
For all these reasons, nothing can better represent Trent than the quote on the bottom right-hand corner of the mural, which reads: I’m just a normal lad from Liverpool whose dream has just come true. He uttered those words just moments after the final whistle in Madrid, showing once again how much of a priority his background was to him, especially when the present moment of success would have been the focus for most players. For Trent, the emphasis was on celebrating with the family who helped him on his journey in becoming the player he is today.
“The reason why it is such a powerful quote is that it works for all walks of life”, says Gibbons. “It is up there not just to inspire the next generation of footballers, but the next generation of scousers and all people in this city to think ‘if Trent achieved his dreams, then so can I.’ I hope that even people who walk past it who have no interest in football will see the mural and think ‘well if Trent’s done it then maybe I can too’, which is more powerful than any write-up in a newspaper.”
Not only does the mural highlight Trent’s attributes away from football, the design also serves as a reminder of his role in the most unforgettable comeback Anfield has ever witnessed, in the game that took Liverpool to Madrid that season. After rivals Manchester City had seemingly sewn up the Premier League title race just the previous evening, Liverpool turned their attentions to a Champions League dream which also looked to be in tatters following a chastening 3-0 first-leg defeat to Lionel Messi’s Barcelona in Spain. Trent had been an unused substitute in a spirited display at the Camp Nou that seemed to have counted for nothing but pride. Barcelona’s visit to Anfield looked like a formality, as they would surely score at least one away goal to put the tie beyond their hosts once and for all. Nobody was expecting Anfield’s greatest night to unveil in front of 54,000 screaming Liverpool fans, but it did. Trent more than played his part, with his desire in winning the ball back before assisting the second goal emblematic of Klopp’s Gegenpressing philosophy, which places an emphasis on retrieving possession as quickly as possible once it has been lost.
And then Trent’s mural moment came. With Liverpool 3-0 up on the night and level on aggregate, the boy from West Derby won a corner on the right-hand side at the Kop end. Having placed the ball for Xherdan Shaqiri to take the set piece, Trent nonchalantly walked away from the corner flag as in the pose captured on the mural. But as he lifted his head and saw Barcelona’s players looking away from the ball, he pounced on the opportunity to catch them unawares. Noticing the attentive Divock Origi on the edge of the six-yard box, Trent played a quick pass along the ground for the Belgian to place into the top corner past Marc-André ter Stegen and a despairing Gerard Pique. The now iconic words “corner taken quickly…” from Steve Hunter, commentator on Liverpool’s in-house channel LFCTV, perfectly summed up the quick thinking from Trent that sealed a historic comeback win.
On the choice of scene for the mural, Gibbons reflects: “At first we thought about one of Trent with the medal celebrating, and there was another of him striking the ball really coolly which was very different to what we’ve ended up with. It was Trent and his brother who wanted something a lot more understated; he thought the medal would have been too flashy. He wanted something that young people could identify with as it was about being a normal lad. He wanted it to be low-key and suited to his personality. The inspiration for him is that he is just like us and did not want something that made him look otherworldly.”
The mural has been in place at Sybil Road for 15 months now and will hopefully remain for generations to come. According to Gibbons, one of the key reasons a mural was chosen over a billboard was the legacy it could provide for future generations of Liverpool fans who pass it, although its popularity has taken him by surprise: “I didn’t necessarily think about how many people would come and see it and would love it. You create this thing that is bigger than me and you, and which is now part of Anfield, part of people’s matchday experience. Every time on the way to the ground I see people having their picture taken in front of it and that’s just boss. The mural has a life of its own; a place of its own in Liverpool in terms of the city and the fanbase. Aspiration is a big issue in certain sections of society, and that is a global problem. It’s not just in Liverpool that we worry about how we can encourage our young people from certain backgrounds to aspire to achieve in the same way that others do. Do they have enough positive role models who talk and act like themselves and inspire the less fortunate to become like them? Hopefully this mural helps with that, because something we are all passionate about is for people to go out and challenge the status quo.”
Whatever resonance the mural has with its many admirers, it is a piece of art that reflects the values at the core of Liverpool’s civic and footballing identities: courage, generosity, and humility. Trent Alexander-Arnold may describe himself as normal, but Liverpool’s scouser in the team is anything but ordinary.
Words: Jake Clay | Imagery: Offside