Alberto Aquilani: 'We Lost So What I Did for Liverpool Was Forgotten'

Alberto Aquilani joined Liverpool in August 2009 and spent three years at the club. The 36-year-old is currently coach of Fiorentina’s Under-19s team. Photograph: Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images
Alberto Aquilani joined Liverpool in August 2009 and spent three years at the club. The 36-year-old is currently coach of Fiorentina’s Under-19s team. Photograph: Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images
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Alberto Aquilani: 'We Lost So What I Did for Liverpool Was Forgotten'

Alberto Aquilani joined Liverpool in August 2009 and spent three years at the club. The 36-year-old is currently coach of Fiorentina’s Under-19s team. Photograph: Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images
Alberto Aquilani joined Liverpool in August 2009 and spent three years at the club. The 36-year-old is currently coach of Fiorentina’s Under-19s team. Photograph: Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images

In football, as in life, there are moments when you just know things could have been so different. So much better. For Alberto Aquilani one such moment was a game that took place 10 years ago. It was going one way but then swung the other and, as it did, his hopes of making it at Liverpool crumbled into dust.

That, perhaps, is an oversimplification of what took place at Anfield on 29 April 2010. Equally, there is no escaping the feeling that there is a link; that failure for Liverpool led to failure for Aquilani. The Italian is certainly in no doubt about that. As he puts it: “This is the life of a footballer – it can all change with one episode.”

The “episode” was a Europa League semi-final second leg between Liverpool and Atlético Madrid. Rafael Benítez’s side came into the contest 1-0 down from the first leg in Spain and deep into a season characterized by poor results on the pitch and outright turmoil off it. Liverpool appeared doomed, but roared on by a raucous crowd they swarmed over Atlético and having leveled the tie in normal time, took the lead five minutes into extra time.

A major European final beckoned. A rainbow after all the showers. But then came the twist – 102 minutes in, a cross from the right and a lashed finish at the back post. It was a killer away goal and it had been scored by a man who had killed Liverpool in the colors of Manchester United only a few years earlier – Diego Forlán.

All in all, then, a sickening night for the hosts, and few felt the agony more acutely than Aquilani. He had arrived at Liverpool from Roma for £20m the previous August and endured a difficult debut season at the club. The game against Atlético was just his 11th start and given the magnitude of the occasion, he saw it as the perfect way to establish himself on Merseyside. And he not only played well but scored the goal that got Liverpool back on level terms via an impressive right-foot finish on 44 minutes. Yossi Benayoun assisted the strike and when he scored himself on 95 minutes, Aquilani justifiably felt that, at last, everything was falling into place. But then came Forlán.

“If we had won we would have played Fulham in the final and so had a big chance of winning the Europa League. It would have been a first trophy for me and changed my luck – my life – at Liverpool,” Aquilani says. “But we lost and suddenly everything was different for me. My goal, the way I played – it was forgotten.”

Aquilani is speaking from Florence, a city he first moved to after joining Fiorentina, from Liverpool, in 2012 and where he has been head coach of the club’s under-19s team since July having previously been under-18s coach and, for six months, first-team assistant. The 36-year-old is enjoying the experience despite the “big worry” of living and working in a country that has been ravaged by Covid-19. “We have rules, we respect the rules, but life is difficult for everybody,” he says solemnly.

A call from England provides Aquilani with a welcome distraction, then, and he is more than happy to talk about the time he spent in this country. But as the conversation develops so too does the sense of frustration and regret in Aquilani’s voice. There is no doubting it – he wishes things had gone better for him at Liverpool and feels they would have done had circumstances been different.

It certainly did not help that he arrived from Roma unable to perform straight away having undergone an operation on his right ankle in May and for which he still required recuperation. “When you sign for a lot of money the fans want to see you play but I could not do this,” Aquilani says. “But Rafa told me not to worry. He said to me you are out for the start of the season but then you will be fit. He saw me as a long-term player, somebody the club had invested in for five years, not five months.”

Benítez’s belief in Aquilani was clear. He described the midfielder, who had made his debut at Roma at the age of 18 and represented Italy at Euro 2008, as a “top-class talent”, but signing someone who was not only injured but had been blighted by injury throughout his time in Rome was clearly a risk. And then there was the reason he was signed – as a replacement for Xabi Alonso, arguably Liverpool’s best player during the previous season when they came within four points of winning the title and who had departed for Real Madrid following a breakdown in his relationship with the manager.

That only cranked up the pressure on Aquilani, although he insists that particular issue was, well, a non-issue. “That was a journalists thing – ‘Liverpool sell Alonso and sign Aquilani to replace him’. I never saw it that way. Xabi was a great player but I was comfortable with my quality. Also, I was a different player to him – more offensive.”

Having made his debut against Arsenal in October 2009 Aquilani slowly but surely began to display his qualities, no more so than in Liverpool’s 4-1 victory over Portsmouth in March 2010 when he scored his first goal for the club, assisted another for Fernando Torres and generally shone with his passing and clever, positive movement from a central position. He continued to be in and out of the side, partly due to injury and partly due to an inability to fully get up to speed with English football, but Aquilani insists he felt “more comfortable in the second part of the season” and come the Atlético game was well and truly ready to push on. And he did push on that night. Ultimately, however, it was not enough.

A broader factor was the chaos that was taking place around him. Benítez was at war with the club’s owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, which undeniably affected the team and led to the Spaniard leaving in the summer and being replaced by Roy Hodgson. It was a decisive moment.

“Everything changed and it was difficult because I didn’t know if the club wanted to keep me,” says Aquilani. “I met Roy – he spoke to me in Italian and was a gentleman, but he told me he wanted to buy Joe Cole and make the team more English. It was obvious I would not get many chances to play so I decided it would be good for me to go back to Italy.” And that is what Aquilani did, joining Juventus on a season-long loan prior to making a similar move to Milan the following summer. And then in August 2012 he made his return home permanent by signing for Fiorentina on a three-year contract. Overall he made 28 appearances for Liverpool, scoring twice.

“Maybe it was a mistake [to return to Italy] because as a player when you move to a new country you have to stay there for two years minimum to understand everything properly” Aquilani reflects. “But, really, as soon as Rafa left I knew my time at the club was finished. I was his project and the project ended after only one year.

“I was young when I moved to Liverpool and it was a big change for me, but I enjoyed it there and made many friends – Torres, [Glen] Johnson, [Dirk] Kuyt … [Pepe] Reina. Maybe people think I was not a good signing and not a good player for Liverpool but for me it was a great moment in my life. It was a year I will never forget.”

(The Guardian)



Mohamed Salah: Liverpool’s Egyptian King

Football - Premier League - Liverpool v Everton - Anfield, Liverpool, Britain - April 2, 2025 Liverpool's Mohamed Salah during the warm up before the match. (Reuters)
Football - Premier League - Liverpool v Everton - Anfield, Liverpool, Britain - April 2, 2025 Liverpool's Mohamed Salah during the warm up before the match. (Reuters)
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Mohamed Salah: Liverpool’s Egyptian King

Football - Premier League - Liverpool v Everton - Anfield, Liverpool, Britain - April 2, 2025 Liverpool's Mohamed Salah during the warm up before the match. (Reuters)
Football - Premier League - Liverpool v Everton - Anfield, Liverpool, Britain - April 2, 2025 Liverpool's Mohamed Salah during the warm up before the match. (Reuters)

A living legend in Liverpool, Mohamed Salah has two more years to burnish his astonishing legacy at Anfield after extending his contract on Friday.

In the midst of constant speculation over his future, the 32-year-old has produced one of the great all-time individual seasons to take the Reds to the brink of the Premier League title.

The Egyptian has scored 27 goals and provided 17 assists in 31 league appearances to help Arne Slot's men open up an 11-point lead for with seven games to go.

A third player of the year award from both his fellow players and football writers is a formality as Salah's latest prolific season has propelled him into the debate over who is the greatest player of the Premier League era.

Salah's 184 goals in the English topflight is the joint fifth highest in Premier League history, while he also now sits in the top 10 for assists.

He did not arrive at Anfield as a superstar destined for greatness when Liverpool paid Roma £34 million ($44 million) for his services in 2017.

Liverpool's Mohamed Salah lifts the trophy after winning the Champions League final match between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid, on June 2, 2019. (AP)

As a pacy winger with promise, Salah had hitherto struggled for consistency and end product with a string of European clubs since making the move from his homeland to Swiss side Basel as a 19-year-old.

Salah failed to make the grade in his first spell in the Premier League at Chelsea as the Blues discarded him after just 19 games in what proved to be a monumental mistake.

A move to Italy, firstly on loan at Fiorentina, before heading to Roma on a permanent basis restored Salah's reputation to tempt Liverpool into taking a punt on his potential, even if he was not Jurgen Klopp's first choice.

The German manager had wanted his compatriot Julian Brandt instead, but was convinced by the club's recruitment team and together they rebuilt the Reds into a force of English and European football once more.

- Fitness fanatic -

Klopp did not take long to be convinced as Salah scored 44 times in a stunning debut season, leading Liverpool to the Champions League final and a top-four Premier League finish.

He was quickly christened "The Egyptian King" on Merseyside and soon the trophies began to flow like his goals.

Salah left the 2018 Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid in tears after being forced off by a shoulder injury in the first half which also limited the impact he could make for his country at the World Cup finals in Russia a few weeks later.

One year on, he scored in the final as Liverpool beat Tottenham 2-0 to deliver the first silverware of the Klopp era.

The club's first Premier League title for 30 years followed in the coronavirus-disrupted 2019/2020 season.

The FA Cup, two League Cups and another run to the Champions League final in 2022 underlined Liverpool's return to serial trophy contenders under Klopp -- and with it Salah's heightened status within the game and further afield.

He was named among Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2019 in which he was described as an "iconic figure for Egyptians, Scousers and Muslims the world over."

Liverpool's Mohamed Salah controls the ball during the English Premier League match between Liverpool and Newcastle United at Anfield stadium in Liverpool, England, on Dec. 16, 2021. (AP)

Salah has used that profile to call for greater gender equality in the Arab world and to appeal for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza following an Israeli air bombardment last year.

However, he has mostly done his talking on the field.

A fitness fanatic, Salah regularly posts images of his workouts on social media which he credits for allowing him to remain among the world's best despite his advancing age.

Klopp's emotional departure last year was seen by many as the end of an era for this Liverpool side.

Instead, in the first season under Dutch coach Slot, Salah has been the catalyst for an unexpected cruise towards the Premier League title.

"It's not a coincidence because the first day I arrived over here, we did a fitness test and he was our fittest player," said Slot.

"So it tells you what his plans were for the season. It also tells you a player that has so many great seasons at a club like this comes back like that tells you a lot about his personality."