Nobody strikes the ball like Alexander-ArnoldYou could see it against Arsenal, again. Just as you could see it last week against Chelsea. Nobody strikes the ball like our right back. Something happens when the Trent Alexander-Arnold boot hits the football. It could be a long distance pass, a shot at goal, a corner or set piece, a stab, a caress, a chip or a simple back pass to his goalie. Whichever of these it is, the execution is almost always perfect. It even
sounds perfect - something that our Covid-emptied stadiums, with their astonishing acoustics, have allowed us to appreciate for the first time.
Here's my favourite Trent strike of the ball. It happened against Sheffield United last season. I believe it was in the second minute of the match and might therefore have been Trent's first touch of the ball. And therefore, because the game was played on January 2nd, it was conceivably Alexander-Arnold's first touch of the New Year. Happy New Year.
https://twitter.com/MrBoywunder/status/1212895020568715265?s=20What's brilliant about this is everything. First of all the conception. That's to say, why did it occur to him it was possible? Or rather, why did it occur to him at all? The lad had to break practically every defensive 'rule' in the book to play this pass. Twenty years ago he would have been shot by his coach for even thinking about it. Second is the execution. Look at it. He's hitting a rising ball with the outside of his boot. This is a very difficult skill, even for professional footballers. The margin for error is tiny. Get the slightest thing wrong and the ball will seem to develop a mind of its own. On the other hand the penalty for error, in that part of the pitch and under such a heavy press, is enormous. But Trent possessed the vision, had the audacity, and trusted his technique. The result was a pass that looped in complete and utter safety yards away from any Sheffield player, behind his own centre halves and even behind the man it was aimed for (Andy Robertson) before arcing forwards into the path of the accelerating receiver, who didn't need to break stride to make the ball his own. From being boxed into a nasty corner Liverpool, within a couple of seconds, were attacking their opponents' depleted rearguard.
I've concentrated on that pass because I'm still not sure of what combination of leg movement, shift of body weight, volume of foot impact etc were necessary to supply all the ingredients that made the ball pitch and yaw like that. It's a mystery to me, which is why it remains a delightful thing to look at.
Years ago I remember the Argentine footballer Jorge Valdano describing David Beckham's free kicks in his Observer column. The ball, he said, "was freighted with privileged information" when Beckham struck it. It's one of the most felicitous phrases I've come across in football journalism because that's exactly what the skilled boot does to the ball. It imparts code which the ball - the brilliant modern type of football especially - deciphers in a really sophisticated way. I always laugh when a pundit says "these balls today move all over the place" - as if there's a design fault, or as if gravity varies according to which football pitch is being used. "I feel sorry for goalkeepers" say these pundits, making us laugh even more. They might as well be advertising their own footballing ignorance. If the ball moves in an unpredictable way when someone like Alexander-Arnold or Roberto Carlos strikes it, it's because they want it to be unpredictable. The goalie may be surprised by the movement, but the fellow who hit it won't be. That's half the idea - perhaps more than half. Successful footballers are successful because they know a central key to the game is to put your opponent into two minds.
Trent was at it on Monday night. Three times during the match he sent in crosses from the right that arced back more than you thought possible. One led to a goal from Robbo. One led to a goal from Diogo Jota. One led to a bust-up between the Arsenal goalie and his skipper. The bust-up is the key to at least one of the two goals. Luiz thought he saw Leno coming for the cross. Leno tried to explain why he'd suddenly pulled out. "Should I come or should I stay?" is the goalkeeper's perennial question of course. No one masters the art of goalkeeping without getting the answer right most of the time. It's a difficult decision at the best of times; it's an ordeal when the cross is supplied by Trent Alexander-Arnold. Look at Leno for the third goal. When Jota shoots he's in a sort of goalie No-Man's Land, neither advanced enough to cut down the angles or retrenched enough to give himself more time to react to the shot. And he's there because for a crucial half-second or so he thought he could come out and catch Trent's cross. I thought so too. Then the loop kicked in and the ball started to bend severely away from the goal. Leno retreated (though not far enough) and Luiz mistimed his header which was pulled out of the air by Jota and stroked home. Trent's cross had done the damage - or rather his sequence of crosses. When a player hitting the ball still appears to have come control over its movement after it's left his boot life becomes very difficult for men like Leno and Luiz. The ball becomes a kite and Alexander-Arnold is the little lad yanking on the string.
I mentioned Beckham earlier and there's no denying he was, for a time, a supreme striker of a ball. But mainly he was a supreme striker of a stationary ball, which is why the English team for a good while was organised around the solitary principle of winning a free kick for Beckham some 25 yards from the goal. The distortion to the team's overall game was obvious to everyone, it seemed, apart from David Beckham and his fan club (which unfortunately included the coach). Trent hits mean free kicks too. But unlike Beckham he does his best work when the ball is moving. And, unlike Beckham (and more like Steven Gerrard) Trent has that precious ability to tune the ball with all parts of his foot. If you know your cricket he is the Jimmy Anderson of football. In-swingers, out-swingers, balls which bite on impact with the turf, balls which appear to gather pace when they kiss the surface, balls which dip suddenly after what appears to be a leisurely flight, others, by contrast, with unfeasibly steep take-offs which travel ten or twenty yards further than they look capable of doing.
When you get a player in a team who regularly does exceptional things with the ball (Firmino is another one) it is an education to everyone else and the exceptional soon becomes normal. That's the beauty of having a team and a squad that isn't overhauled every twelve months. Everybody becomes habituated to excellence. Trent on the ball for Liverpool means "many things are possible" and teammates react accordingly. They make runs which, on the face of it, might seem stupid. Or they slow down their movement and become 'cooler' in heated areas of the pitch, knowing that the ball is doing the work. To the opposition, however, it is hell. Unlike the men in Red everything appears unpredictable and, for them, the ball moves in mysterious ways.
(in Memory of The Gulleysucker)
