Soccer (Football)
He’s one of the best footballers in the world and he’s only 21 years old. This is how the dazzling Liverpool and England star turned his boyhood dream into a reality.
Trent Alexander-Arnold remembers vividly the moment he settled on his choice of future career. He was seven years old and about to watch his first ever Liverpool FC game at Anfield. “It was the Juventus Champions League game, in 2005… an amazing game,” he recalls, “I remember walking into the stadium and just at that moment, I knew I wanted to play for Liverpool.”
For most seven-year-old kids, such an ambition would be a pipe dream. For Liverpool-born Trent, who joined the Reds academy at the age of six, the question of whether he would make it has never really been in doubt. “It never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t make it,” he explains. “It wasn’t that I thought, ‘yeah, I’m going to make it’, it’s just I never thought I wouldn’t.”
What’s most extraordinary about the Liverpool and England right-back’s career so far, though, is just how quickly he did make it. At just 21 years old, he’s already a Champions League winner, a Premier League winner, a World Club Cup winner, a European Super Cup winner and a Ballon D’or nominee. He’s also earned himself a Guinness World Record for his ability to set up goalscoring opportunities and a reputation for having completely redefined the role of the full-back. A product, perhaps, of the obscene number of hours he spent playing football from a young age (“I think me and my brothers definitely hit 10,000 hours”), his penchant for winning and a family who devoted everything to helping Trent fulfil his dream.
Three boys and a ball
“It was quite unhealthy now that I think about it,” laughs Trent, as he recalls the amount of football he and his brothers, Tyler (now 25) and Marcel (now 17), would play growing up. He first remembers playing with his eldest brother Tyler at the age of five (“I’d be playing it with him round the houses and in the gardens and stuff") and, later, the hunger he and his brothers shared to play football at any given opportunity. “Any type of football game, or any type of weather, at any time of the day, we’d be playing football, the three of us; there was nothing else we did. If it was raining, we’d make goals inside in the hallway, we’d use balls of tin foil, we’d use socks, we’d use literally anything at all to play football.”
We all wanted to play football, but my brothers had to sacrifice their dreams for mine to come true
But when Trent caught the attention of Liverpool FC Academy scouts at the age of six, it would put him on a path that would later require his brothers to set aside their own love of football, in order for Trent’s talent to flourish. “We all wanted to play football, but my brothers had to sacrifice their dreams for mine to come true,” he says. “I can’t even explain how hard it must have been for my older brother being a teenager and not being able to go to school football matches because he had to come to my training sessions and just stand there and watch. Likewise for my younger brother. I could never pay them back enough.”
Talent spotted
It was out of sheer luck that the young boy from Liverpool became known to his local club. “Liverpool were doing a half-term training camp for my age and my school got about six or seven invites,” he remembers. “Luckily they were for my age group and my class specifically. The teacher said, ‘Well, who wants to go? And obviously every single lad in the classroom put their hand up, so the only fair way was to pick names out of a hat, and luckily my name came out.”
It wasn’t long before Liverpool realised that luck, too, had fallen on their side, in Trent’s name being chosen from the ballot that day. “I think within the space of 10-15 minutes, one of the scouts came to Mum and said, ‘We’d really like it if Trent was able to come up two-to-three times a week for training and again on the weekend.’”
Soon the Liverpool starlet was securing many hours of invaluable practice – something he says was “massive” in helping him hone his skills as a youngster. “When I first joined Liverpool, I was training, maybe two-three times a week and then I would play for two teams on a Saturday. I’d play for the under-sevens for my local team and then, straight after that, I’d go and play for under-eights. And then on the Sunday, I’d play in the morning for a different team and then I’d go to the academy and play again there. So I was playing so much football from a young age.”
Naturally, such a schedule was challenging to keep up – particularly for mum, Dianne. With Trent's dad, Michael, working away, his mum was forced to make some difficult choices in order to make it work. “My dad lived in London, so it was just mum and the three of us and obviously my older brother wanted to play for his team,” he explains. “More often than not, my older brother’s football would be sacrificed for me to go to training because Mum couldn’t be in two places at once.”
Little sacrifices
As Trent entered his teenage years, further choices needed to be made to accommodate Trent’s increasingly demanding training schedule. “Liverpool asked if they could start taking me out of school half days and my school refused,” explains Trent. “And the decision was made by me, Mum and Dad [to transfer schools]. “They asked if I was really serious and they spoke to my academy and said: ‘Is it worth it?’ And they said, 'Yes'.”
I always tried to be in football as much as possible – I’ve still never been to a music festival. It just feels normal now, making little sacrifices
Trent's parents were keen to ensure his academic studies weren't sacrificed at the expense of training. He attended Rainhill High School in Merseyside, which has a formal partnership with Liverpool FC, making it possible for students to balance their football and their education. He went on to pass seven GCSEs, but it was no easy road. “Because I lived far away, I’d get picked up at 7 o’clock and then I’d do two hours in a car, get to school for nine, finish school, go straight to football and get back home at like 7:30,” Trent explains, “and then I’d have to do homework. So that was my routine for about four-five years.”
As such, there was little time to do the things most teenagers his age might enjoy doing, such as seeing friends on the weekend. For Trent, the priority would always be his football career. “I always tried to be in football as much as possible – I’ve still never been to a music festival,” he says. “It just feels normal now, making little sacrifices. You try and ensure that all these things that you're doing will be worth it in the end.”
Big break
And it wasn’t long before such choices began to prove their worth. As he came up through the ranks, Trent was chosen to captain both Liverpool’s U-16 and U-18 teams – and was highly touted by the likes of Steven Gerrard, who'd been working on his UEFA coaching badges at the academy at the time.
But Trent’s big break – and proudest career moment so far – came with his first-team debut in October 2016. Just two weeks after his 18th birthday, he was named in Jürgen Klopp’s starting 11 in a League Cup match against Tottenham. “They’d named the team and I was starting and I remember being really confused because I hadn’t been expecting it,” he recalls. “It was so nerve-wrecking because you’ve never played in front of 50-55,000 people before. But it was one of the best days of my life.”
Then came his first Premier League start against Manchester United in 2017 at Old Trafford, which, arguably, came as an even bigger surprise. It was just three hours before kick-off when Klopp approached and asked: “Are you ready?”
“We trained on the Saturday and then travelled to Manchester and stayed over,” says Trent, “just a normal match day. And then we have a walk about three hours before kick-off and the manager came over to me and put his arm round me and said, ‘Are you ready?’ I was so confused. He said: ‘Are you in?’ I said, 'Yeah, yeah'. And he said: ‘OK, well I need you to start today.’ He said my face dropped. That’s how I felt, I was so shocked. I went back to my room and called my mum and she literally just burst into tears.”
Finding his feet
To have felt such bewilderment was only natural, especially when you consider, just a few months prior, the lad from West Derby was going to Anfield as a fan. It was a feeling that would stick with him for some time, too. “I was starstruck, I was nervous, I was really shy,” says Trent of joining the senior side. “Everyone tried to help me, they all understood how nerve-wracking it was stepping up.”
But there was one player in particular who Trent was especially grateful for. “Hendo [team captain Jordan Henderson] was big,” he explains. “I never really had an amazing bond with any of the lads because I’ve always been quiet, but he just made me comfortable being around them type of lads.” The pair struck up a friendship while out in Russia for the 2018 FIFA World Cup – a bond which had an instrumental and long-lasting impact. “He made me not be afraid to make mistakes and not feel as though I’m not as talented as the other lads,” he explains. “After that I wasn’t overthinking asking for the ball… so I’d take more risks and, by doing that, I became a better player.”
But before finding his voice in the team, Trent needed to secure his spot – something which took months of hard graft as he fought to make the right-back position his own. “I didn’t feel like the manager trusted me defensively that much at the start of the season [2017/2018],” he explains. “I wasn't like a regular starter, I was chopping and changing with Joe Gomez. In the big games, or in the difficult games, he'd always play Joe, so I felt like there was a lot to work on, a lot to prove.”
So that’s what he did – and with enough conviction to find himself named in Klopp’s starting 11 for the 2018 Champions League final – becoming Liverpool’s youngest-ever player to start. And although victory wasn’t to be for the Reds that year, a Champion’s League trophy would be just around the corner the following year – a year in which Trent would emerge as one of the world’s most exciting footballing talents.
Breakthrough season
In September 2018, Trent registered his first assist of the season in a 3-0 victory at Southampton – the first of 12, which saw Trent end his season having registered more Premier League assists than any defender, ever, in a single season, earning himself a place in the Guinness World Record books. (He went on to record a total of 17 assists across all competitions that season.)
By now the lifelong Red’s dazzling range of passing was earning him a reputation as one of the most impressive full-backs in the world, but there was one game in particular that truly etched the 20-year-old in people’s minds: the second leg of Liverpool’s Champion’s League semi-final against Barcelona. With the game 3-3 on aggregate, Trent stepped up to take an ingenuous corner, at first walking away from the ball when he noticed Barcelona’s defence was down, only to return speedily (and cunningly) to cross the ball to Divock Origi, who scored.
And with that, Liverpool would go on to make the final – where Trent assisted his boyhood team in a victory over Tottenham Hotspur – as he became the youngest-ever player from the club to start in two consecutive Champions League finals. “It was a dream come true for everyone,” says Trent of that glorious night in Madrid. “It’s the whole experience, it’s not just the game, everything about it.”
I knew once I’d played that game, I was a Liverpool player. No one could ever take that away from me
But would he say it was the proudest moment of his career so far? “I’d say that was the happiest, definitely the happiest,” he concludes. “I feel as though my debut was my proudest because, even though I always dreamed of winning the Champions League and winning trophies, first and foremost, you need to make your debut and I knew once I’d played that game, I was a Liverpool player. No one could ever take that away from me.”
Desire to win
In 2019, Trent was nominated for the Ballon d’Or – the same year a three-storey-high mural was painted of him on a terrace house near Anfield, to commemorate the homegrown hero and his team’s spectacular season.
But of all the young lads from Liverpool who also shared Trent’s boyhood dream of playing for their beloved club, what was it about Trent, aside from his obvious natural talent, that put him on the pathway to achieving such heights? “I think my competitiveness,” he says. “I was just going into training every day making sure I won and beat the person I was trying to play against and, by doing that, I just found myself always improving.”
Such an inherent – and incessant – desire to win, Trent is certain, stems from the many years he spent playing football with his two brothers. “It’s down to my brothers that I have that competitiveness,” he says. “The competitiveness between the three of us was frightening, there’d be tears, they’d be fights, there was everything you can imagine just to win.”
I know myself that I can get as high as I want to get to, defensively, if I work hard enough for it
And it’s a trait that, even now, continues to service him, as he strives to be the best player he can – in every possible context. “I try and be competitive in training, in anything: in passing drills I try and challenge someone, who makes a mistake first, who’ll score the least goals, obviously [with] me and Robbo [fellow full-back Andrew Robertson], who will get the most assists. It just makes me such a better player because I’m focused so much on winning that I put everything that I have into it.”
Sky’s the limit
Perhaps it’s Trent’s competitiveness – not only with others but with himself – that keeps him driving forward with such momentum that he rarely slows down to take stock of all he’s achieved so far. “I feel as though there’s so much more that I can be better in and there's more I want to achieve and so it’s difficult for me to stop and relax,” he says.
Despite his scarcely believable career trajectory so far, the homegrown star is just as ambitious as his younger self – and his sense of belief around what’s possible holds just as strong. “People might think I’m a bit big-headed, but I know myself that I can get as high as I want to get to, defensively, if I work hard enough for it. I feel as though the sky’s the limit, really.”
