MY PAIN FOR FLAMENGO KIDS
It’s glory all the way for brilliant Anfield goalkeeper Alisson but the Brazilian tragedy put his life into perspective
ALISSON BECKER shakes his head and takes a moment to find adequate words to discuss the event which, perhaps more than any other for him in 2019, has put football in its true perspective. ‘It affected me just because it was a tragedy, of course,’ he says after a while. ‘But it affected me even more because I lived what those boys lived…’
He is talking about the football academy fire in February which killed 10 promising young players at Flamengo, the team Liverpool eclipsed to win the World Club Cup last weekend.
The details were beyond desperate. The dormitory where the boys — all from impoverished backgrounds — died at the facility known as ‘Vulture’s Nest’ lacked a fire safety certificate and any adequate means of escape.
Those who perished in the dark are known in Brazil as ‘Garotos do Ninho’ — ‘Boys of the Nest.’ Many in Rio de Janeiro, where the club is based, speak of the scandal being ‘Flamengo’s Hillsborough’.
Alisson knew those trainees’ way of life, from his own time at the academy of the Porto Alegre club Internacional, and says he owes everything to it.
‘I lived away from home adjusting for myself,’ he reflects. ‘The club supported me, gave me all the conditions to become a great player. Not just to become a great player but a good person — to teach me to look for the whole life and not just look for the pitch as a player. To be a good human being. Those boys had their lives in front of them. They had the same dreams as me.’
The tone of this conversation is extraordinary, given that the year we are reflecting on has put Alisson, 27, on another level as a Champions League and Copa America winner, recipient of the inaugural best goalkeeper award at the Ballon d’Or ceremony 27 days ago and — before today’s home match with Wolves — part of a Liverpool side who stand 13 points clear at the top of the Premier League.
Yet there’s always been a hinterland with Alisson. Staff at Liverpool were struck by the fact very soon after he walked through the door in the summer of 2018, after that £67million move from Roma.
All clubs are looking for new ways to engage fans through their social media channels but Alisson gave Liverpool gold dust when he drove down to the backstreet club in the city’s Baltic Triangle to play some guitar with Jamie Webster, the electrician and musician whose post-match ‘Boss’ gigs there have become a way of life for hundreds of fans.
Their half-hour conversation and jam, viewed more than a million times on YouTube saw Alisson discuss Scouse, musical preferences and goalkeeping with Webster, all in English, which he learned from watching TV movies with subtitles and is still perfecting.
‘Music is life,’ he says, reflecting on that video. ‘Music brings happiness for everybody. Since I was 13, I started to play just because I enjoy it. I taught myself and just enjoyed it.’
His preferences, Brazilian gospel and country, reflect his life. His faith is clearly of deep significance to him and so, too, his country.
The fact he has performed Baby Shark more times than he cares to remember is down to his four-year-old daughter, Helena, with whom he duets in his car on another clip.
‘It’s something I enjoy with my family and my daughter,’ he says. ‘They enjoy it when I play for them and we dance together.’
At the Boss gig, Alisson accompanies Webster in a rendition of his Allez, Allez, Allez anthem, which has become the soundtrack to Liverpool’s emergence as a title-challenging side these past two years.
At Anfield today, there will be the first airing of the newest anthem, sung to a very old tune. ‘And now you’re going to believe us, we’re champions of the world.’
In keeping with Jurgen Klopp’s refusal to countenance title talk and thus fall victim to the kind of reverse psychology which has done for Liverpool in the past, Alisson does not go in for Premier League predictions.
Don’t Look Back in Anger is in his guitar repertoire and Klopp’s message to his players, about not building themselves up for a fall, is clearly getting through.
The nearest the goalkeeper comes to such discussion is a pledge to return to Webster’s performance space for one of the post
match sessions if the title does, indeed come home to Anfield after 30 long years.
‘I made a promise [to go to one],’ he says. ‘If we win the Premier League, I will.’
He also ventures to say that he feels this Liverpool team — arguably the best they have been all season in the 4-0 win at Leicester on Boxing Day — are ‘different’ from anything he has known in his career.
‘I think we are all in [this with] the same goal, that’s the main thing,’ he says. ‘We have no vanity in the changing room. We enjoy being together. We enjoy the moments we are playing together.
‘We enjoy our moments, speaking, laughing… speaking about many things in life.
But the most important thing is we like to be together on the pitch.
‘We like to enjoy the game. We like to run together, to put our intensity [out there]. We know how strong we are together so this is the most important thing for the team.’
Missing out through injury on the European Super Cup final win over Chelsea seems to have hurt, in a way it would not for players with many medals on the mantelpiece. ‘My family helped me and God helped me at that time on the recovery. But when you miss games, you miss opportunities.’
He tends to deliver on those big occasions. In his six games for Liverpool which were either finals or eliminators — against Salzburg, Tottenham, Barcelona and Napoli in the Champions League as well as Monterrey and Flamengo last week — he has saved 26 shots on target, including six which were excellent goalscoring opportunities for the other side.
The Liverpool Echo’s Blood Red podcast last week debated whether Alisson is now as vital to Liverpool’s success as Virgil van Dijk, having delivered the team to the Club World Cup final in the Dutchman’s absence with a stellar display against Monterrey in the Doha semi-final.
A conversation about his home city Porto Alegre seems to absorb him far more. The place was promised the earth by the Brazilian government when it hosted matches at the 2014 World Cup but outlying communities such as Morro da Cruz lack basic amenities and are still waiting for someone to make good on the politicians’ talk.
‘We have a beautiful view of Lake Guaiba in the city but a lot of problems too and in the country,’ too, he says.
‘And it’s not just Brazil. Maybe you don’t have favelas in Rome but you do have poverty there. I do some work in Brazil with children and I will do more when I finish my career.
‘But I think we need to look more [to provide] that help. We should look out for these people much more.’