Liverpool’s new boy Alisson is the most expensive goalkeeper in history.. but he used to be so short he he doubted he would ever make it. In fact, he was only force to play in goal as a kid because he was the smallest one and the bigger boys wanted to play outfield.
At 6’3″, Alisson isn’t the biggest goalkeeperLiverpool’s latest recruit, signed for a world record £67m from Roma, is the latest piece of the jigsaw Jurgen Klopp hopes will lead the Reds to Premier League glory. But if it wasn’t for a sudden growth spurt when he was a kid, it’s doubtful anyone would’ve given him a chance.It was that sudden burst in height that gave a teenage Alisson the belief he was going to make it as a pro.
When he was training with the Internacional youth team in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, he claimed he grew over six inches in a year between 15 and 16.
In a piece on The Players’ Tribune, he wrote: “The real reason I began in goal was my brother.I was playing with his friends, and they were all older and bigger than me. So when it came to picking teams … well, of course, the short kid had to go in goal. It wasn’t even up for discussion, you know?”
He earned rave reviews between the sticks but there was still one major problem.. he was still too short.
He said: “I had started playing for the youth team at Internacional, in Porto Alegre.It’s one of the big clubs in Brazil, so I was clearly doing something right.But I did have one problem. I was still a shorty. You see, physically, I matured late, so all the goalkeepers at my age were taller and stronger than me. We had this maturation test that graded players from one to five. And when my teammates had reached stage five — I was still at stage two.And that’s no good for a goalkeeper, right? You gotta be tall, you gotta jump high, you gotta cover the goal.”
Alisson was in the reserves and thought his days were numbered when Internacional brought in another goalkeeper from Palmeiras.
“He was bigger and stronger than me, too. I just thought, ‘Great, now I’m third choice. How the hell am I ever gonna play for Brazil like this?’ I had serious doubts. Then came the Nike Cup — this huge competition for 14 and 15-year-olds.But I didn’t even play. And honestly, I thought about packing it in.
“I knew about all of these legends, like Iker Casillas and Gianluigi Buffon, who had made their first-team debuts at 17, and I wanted to be like them.”He asked, “How long could I wait?”
Alisson admitted the club questioned if he was going to grow, but they gave him another year to see how his body developed. He continued: “I think God was watching over me, because they decided to wait one more year, to see if I’d begin to mature.My technique improved rapidly. And then an amazing thing happened: I finally started to grow.In one year, I went from 170 centimeters to 187 centimeters. My maturity level shot up to four.Suddenly I had the physique and the technique. People began to take notice of me — more than I even realised.”
Sport runs in the family and Alisson very much appeared destined to play in goal. But he credits his brother Muriel, who currently plays for Belenenses in Portugal, as the reason why he picked up gloves in the first place.
“Some people say I was bound to be a goalie, and perhaps that’s true as well,” he said.” I mean, my mother was a goalkeeper on her handball team at school.My great grandfather played goalie for an amateur football club in my hometown of Novo Hamburgo.”