Liverpool defender Kostas Tsimikas has claimed that Thiago Alcantara and Luis Diaz are ‘top professionals’ at the card game UNO.
Speaking to liverpoolfc.com, Tsimikas said that the two Liverpool players have been winning at cards during the team’s Austrian training camp.
“I’ve only played (UNO) one time and I finished last! But in my opinion, I think one of the best is Lucho [Luis Diaz] or Thiago. These two guys are top professionals at UNO,” said the Greek left-back. “Of course everything we do is very competitive, always we try to win. But at the end, only the smile is on our faces and I think this is most important.”
Tsimikas also said the squad are looking forward to the annual table tennis tournament. With Mohamed Salah the reigning champion, there are apparently a few looking to steal his title in the coming days.
“We didn’t play table tennis [yet]. At the moment we played UNO but I think the next days maybe we will play a little bit of table tennis because last year we also made the tournament and everybody will want to win [against] Mo because obviously he is first,” said the 25-year-old.
Bonds growing, fitness building for Liverpool
Team bonding and fitness building are the order of the day for Liverpool in Austria. On both counts, it looks to be going well.
As seen in LFCTV’s Inside Training video, The Reds squad were seriously put through their paces yesterday.
While there has been plenty of ball-work up until now in pre-season, yesterday was all about running.
Unsurprisingly, the two players who looked to cope best with the athletics training were James Milner and Mohamed Salah. This led to an amusing exchange between Curtis Jones and Salah, with Jones claiming that the Egyptian does all his running in training and none during games.
The video, as well as Tsimikas’ little anecdote, also demonstrate that the bonds within the group are growing.
New signings Fabio Carvalho and Darwin Nunez look to be getting well acquainted with their new teammates. Meanwhile, players like Tsimikas and Thiago are now relatively old heads around the squad.
It’s also easy to forget that this is Diaz’s first pre-season with Liverpool, too. The 25-year-old has only been at the club for six months, but it’s credit to him that it feels like a lot longer. The time away will be doing his integration all sorts of good as well.
Onwards and upwards for Liverpool then. We await with baited breath who comes out on top in this year’s table tennis tournament. If we were betting people, our money would be on Mo once more.
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