Thiago Alcantara gave his Liverpool teammates a treat on Monday as he scored a stunning goal during training.
The cheeky volley was branded ‘outrageous’ by the club’s official Twitter account, who posted a clip of the goal yesterday.
Thiago starts the move by dinking a lovely first-time pass upfield to Diogo Jota. The Portuguese attacker then shows nice control as he chests it down for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Meanwhile, Thiago has followed his pass towards goal. Oxlade-Chamberlain picks him out perfectly in the box with a low cross, which Thiago buries past Adrian with a volleyed ‘rabona’ finish. Pure class.
Thiago comes to the party
It may be a mere 20 second clip, but it just goes to show the sheer ability of Liverpool’s number 6.
Because we haven’t seen nearly enough of him in a Liverpool shirt, it can be easily forgotten just how lucky we are to have him at the club.
Goalscoring isn’t one of his main attributes. He has so far scored three times in 52 appearances for The Reds and managed 31 in 235 games during his seven years with Bayern Munich.
But if this clip is anything to go off, that’s probably more a case of him deciding to leave it to others. Thiago is so good that you get the feeling that if his job was to be the team’s goal scorer, he’d be registering 30 per season no trouble.
Instead, when fit, he’s the conductor of Liverpool’s passing game. It’s great to see him preparing well for the mammoth trip to Arsenal tomorrow, where he’ll surely start.
Leading by example
Some of the Liverpool youngsters who are invited to train with the first-team must be pinching themselves for many reasons.
The club currently employ a staggering number of world class players. If you’re a goalkeeper, who better to train alongside than Alisson Becker.
As a young defender, you couldn’t ask for more than to learn from Virgil Van Dijk and as an attacker, take your pick. Mohamed Salah, Diogo Jota, Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, the list goes on.
But as an inexperienced midfielder, there can’t be better educations than simply watching what Thiago does with the ball.
Young Red Tyler Morton said as much when interviewed by The Independent last month.
“Sometimes I just watch Thiago. You can’t not just admire it; how he plays; the touch of the ball; the disguise he puts on passes,” said Morton.
“You think ‘that’s where I want to be’. He’s just that good.”
Morton has come on leaps and bounds this year. If this clip is indicative of the way Thiago plays in training, then he won’t be the only one to benefit from working with the Spaniard day-in day-out.
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