Pedro Chirivella has admitted that he was pinching himself at the possibility of training with Steven Gerrard whilst at Liverpool.
Speaking on the Blood Red podcast from the Liverpool Echo, Chirivella said he was starstruck by only one player at Liverpool: Stevie G.
“The only player in my life that I was really like ‘wow I’m training with him and playing next to him’ was Steven (Gerrard),” said the now Nantes player. “For everything he accomplished in Liverpool, for who he is in Liverpool, for me it was a big day.”
The 25-year-old, who played 11 times for The Reds during a seven year spell, said that even into his thirties, there wasn’t a player like Gerrard.
“I’ve never seen a right foot like his, the way he shoots, the passes he made, how he runs at that age he was still a machine physically,” said Chirivella. “I remember he was one of the players who when I went home and spoke with my parents I said ‘he’s on a top, top level.'”
Thinking of what could have been
Most of us can probably agree that as an all-round player, there weren’t many, if any, better than Gerrard in the last 30 years at Liverpool. Stevie had it all.
If there’s one regret that he might have about his time at his boyhood club though, it’s about the fact that he left when he did.
Things seemed bad in the summer of 2015 when he called it a day under Brendan Rodgers. But had he stuck around for just one more season, he would have overlapped with a certain Jurgen Klopp.
Of course he wasn’t the player he was in his prime, but it would have been a magical thing to see. One of Liverpool’s greatest ever players at the club with one their greatest managers would have been an image for the ages.
It also seems unlikely that Gerrard wouldn’t have given the club an extra couple of years. Klopp values the older heads around the squad for their leadership and experience.
James Milner will be at Liverpool beyond the age of thirty-seven. Gerrard would have been thirty-six by the end of Klopp’s first season.
With a team in transition, Jurgen could have really used his leadership at the club.
Nevertheless, things didn’t work out too badly for Klopp. Perhaps one day we’ll still see Gerrard back at Anfield in the manager’s seat. Until then, though, we’ll remember him as the player he was. And what a player he was.
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