‘I’m not throwing in towel’ Why Adrian wants to battle for No1 jersey at Liverpool
Exclusive interview Adrian tells Jason Burt he is ready to rival fit-again Alisson at Liverpool
Before every game, Adrian places a yellow towel in his goal. It is no ordinary towel, either: a gift from his family, it is covered in messages freighted with meaning. In one corner is inscribed “la humildad te hace grande” – humility makes you great; in another are pictures of his wife, Tamara, and their children, Enzo and Eric; there are also the legends “Liverpool FC” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.
“All in one towel!” Adrian says, with a laugh. “So, imagine how special it is.”
The Liverpool goalkeeper freely admits he is superstitious: it is why the towel is yellow – the colour of his goalkeeper’s shirt at his first club, Real Betis – and why it carries the number 13, the only one he will wear. Both yellow and 13 represent good luck in Spain. Adrian was offered the No1 jersey when he left Spain to join West Ham six years ago because first-choice goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen wore 22. He turned it down.
It would have happened at Liverpool, too, had Alisson Becker not already given up the 13 shirt in favour of the No1 by the time Adrian arrived. “Maybe it was, ‘Adrian is coming. OK, give him the 13!’” Adrian says, laughing. “But the towel is like my gloves. If I do not have my towel … one day I left it at home before a West Ham game so I called my wife and said: ‘Someone has to bring me my towel!’”
Superstition, fate, luck – call it what you will, but after leaving
West Ham at the end of June when his contract expired, having turned down the offer of a new deal, Adrian was without a club and began his pre-season with Union Deportiva Pilas, a semiprofessional club from his hometown of Seville who play in the sixth tier of Spanish football.
There were, eventually, many offers: from Spain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. There was even a “contract on the table” from a Spanish club, understood to be Real Valladolid. But Adrian hesitated. “Something was telling me ‘Wait because something good will come’.” He was right. The call came from Liverpool, who had granted Simon Mignolet his wish to return to Belgium with Club
Brugge. “I think it was almost fate,” Adrian says. “I was very close [to signing elsewhere] but the moment I received the call from Liverpool, I told my agent to stop all negotiations.”
Although he does not want to wear the No1 shirt, Adrian is clear. He is a No1 goalkeeper. “When I signed for Liverpool, I knew I was coming for a big challenge in my career and I think the competition makes us better. So, to have two No1s in the team is great for both of us. It’s not my mentality to be a No2 and even less so when I am 32. Maybe in four, five years’ time
I will tell you differently, but it’s much better than being in a comfort zone of one No1 and the other [goalkeeper] sitting on the bench forever. But I also like to be united and work together.”
I interviewed Adrian at West Ham last December, along with Lukasz Fabianski. That discussion also revolved around how two senior goalkeepers felt when they were vying for the same position. Alisson is now back in training at Liverpool, having recovered from the calf injury he sustained against Norwich on Aug 9 in the first Premier League game of the season, and the expectation is that he will replace Adrian for Sunday’s fixture away to Manchester United.
“We will have a chat with the manager,” Adrian says. “Obviously, he [Alisson] is fit and training with the team. We are two No1s now, waiting to see who is going to play. Last season, Ali did really well and I’m here to push him and to help Liverpool. It will be the manager’s decision and after that we need to prepare for everything and if that is not in the Premier League [for me] it’s to try and have an opportunity in another competition.”
And if Alisson does go straight back in? “I am more than ready, mentally. I had the situation before when I was at West Ham when Fabianski came in last season. We need to be professional. We all have ego and we want to play all the games. But sometimes you do not. And he [Alisson] is a great keeper and a great person, which is the most important thing.”
Adrian owes a debt to his former West Ham team-mate Aaron
Cresswell. It was the full-back who gave Liverpool’s goalkeeping coach John Achterberg – who knew Cresswell from their days at Tranmere Rovers – a glowing recommendation and Adrian’s mobile number when it looked like Mignolet was going. “I didn’t know that at the time but after I signed he told me,” Adrian says. “So, thank you, Cress, because he had a good word for me!”
For two days there were nerves – waiting to see if Mignolet’s move went through – before signing a two-year contract with an option for another 12 months. Then there were just three training sessions – and only “1½ with the team” – before he was on the bench against Norwich. Except, after just 39 minutes, Alisson went down and could not continue. Adrian’s last
‘I had the situation before at West Ham. We all have ego and want to play all the games’
first-team appearance had been in West Ham’s 4-2 FA Cup humiliation away to Wimbledon in January. “I will never forget the great reception I had. The fans had lost one of the most important players for them but everyone stood and chanted my name.”
Liverpool won, and have won pretty much ever since, including in the Uefa Super Cup in Istanbul against Chelsea. Adrian was the hero, saving Tammy Abraham’s spot-kick in the penalty shoot-out, but suffered a bizarre injury after a fan ran on to the pitch, slipped and crashed into his ankle during the celebrations. “The right one,” Adrian says. “The same foot that I had saved the penalty with! I felt it turn and then it just blew up. It was massive.” The injury is one legacy of that night – “It is still not 100 per cent now,” Adrian says – but a happier memory is how it felt to lift the first trophy of his career.
“You remember all the people who supported you from the beginning, you remember all the bad moments and not just the good ones,” he says. “We were having dinner and the trophy was there in the middle. I was looking at it thinking ‘It’s so nice’ and James [Milner] just turned to me and said ‘Go on, take it with you’. I said ‘No, the security will stop me’ and he said ‘No, take it. Nobody was better than you today so go and sleep with her’. It was a great feeling.”
It was naturally an adjustment playing for Liverpool after West Ham. “They are totally different kind of fish, to be fair,” Adrian says. “West Ham’s target is to be in the top 10, top six and to have the chance to play in Europe. Here, you have the mentality that you have to win all the games, all the trophies, all the titles. It’s a different kind of pressure. But
I like to be under pressure.”
For obvious reasons, he has had to adapt the way he plays, with Liverpool moving the ball out from the back. “Maybe in the history of goalkeeping, now is harder than ever. We are goalkeepers but we have to play like an outfielder as well,” says Adrian, who at least has the advantage of having started his career as a striker. “At Liverpool, we are like a rock. We are defending well, attacking well.”
Eight league wins from eight tells its own story but such is Adrian’s desire to push himself that he is unhappy with only two clean sheets. He also knows that Alisson, who has just won the Fifa award for the world’s best goalkeeper, is ready. It is testament to how well Adrian has done, though, that Alisson has not been missed.
“I feel really proud because if nobody missed the best goalkeeper in the world last season then it’s a good feeling for me. I was more than ready to face that challenge. The team has helped me a lot because it’s really easy to play with those defenders in front of you and we have made a magnificent start to the league: eight from eight.”
The goalkeeping unit is tight at Anfield, with backups Andy Lonergan and Caoimhin Kelleher ensuring standards never drop.
“The group has to be strong and push everyone,” Adrian admits. “The goalkeepers are totally different from other players. They train apart. For us, it is three or four keepers with the coaches John [Achterberg] and Jack [Robinson]. That philosophy of having a good group is more important than having one good goalkeeper and the others who do not feel they will play and are comfortable on the bench.
“If everyone is pushing it’s good for the guy who is playing because he knows he can’t relax. It’s a pressure that the goalkeepers have to feel. It’s no good to feel you are No1 and no one is pushing you. It’s no good being in a comfort zone.”
Adrian will do that. Before heading to Old Trafford on Sunday, he will collect his towel and reflect on the message: humility makes you great. “Look, I had to spend my time training at a lower league team,” he says. “And then along came the champions of Europe.”