Liverpool’s Brazilian goalkeeper Alisson sees no reason to step off the accelerator

I prefer to win, always,” Alisson is unambiguous, direct just like his playing style. A goalkeeper’s pride is always that ‘zero’ attached next to the opposition on the scoresheet but there is only one goal on the Brazilian’s mind. “No matter if it comes with clean sheets or with an assist, I wanna win.”
Perhaps, he stands at the forefront of the group of ‘mentality monsters’ that Juergen Klopp has nurtured during Liverpool’s steady yet heady climb to the pinnacle...Okay, okay, he commands from the back.
Boasting of 21 EPL clean sheets last season — with a little help from his friends — the 27-year-old duly picked up the keeper’s prize before sweeping all the global awards. And although injury and suspension have restricted him to 18 Premiership appearances this term, he leads the ranks with 10 clean sheets, all coming in his last 11 domestic starts.
Yeah, Liverpool and their unassuming orchestrator have been a statistician’s delight the past year. And some would jump at the opportunity of pointing out when Alisson Becker conceded against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League last Tuesday, it was the club world champions’ first in all competitions in 380 minutes.
The second episode will be out two weeks later but it’s back to the Premier League binge now.
While there is a huge list of records to overcome, the Reds who have taken 103 points from a possible 105 in a run stretching back to 2018/19, need to win five matches out of 12 to seal that elusive 19th title. But the players have their blinders on. “We are keeping our feet on the ground,” Alisson shares with TOI, “The next challenge, that’s the most important thing.” West Ham at Anfield, tonight. “It’s difficult to not be too excited for the things we are achieving, but we still have many more games to play and we need to keep doing our best . It’s something that we keep hearing in the dressing room, from the boss.”
For all of Liverpool’s EPL near-successes in the past, they perhaps lacked that winning mentality and sustained grit that push one over the finish line. Liverpool under Gerard Houllier (2001-02 season), Rafa Benitez (2008-09) and Brendan Rodgers (2013-14) have finished just short and in the following seasons, instead of breaking the jinx, concluded their adventures in 5th, 7th and 6th places, respectively.
While there are several reasons for this surge under Klopp, Alisson sums it up perfectly. More comfortable in his native Portuguese language, the International academy product recently told the Folha de São Paulo newspaper about the Reds’ adaptability. “I see our team very mature to deal with different circumstances within the same match,” he said. “Despite being young, it’s an experienced team, with a great desire to win. It’s like a shark that smells blood in the water, goes blind and attacks. We developed an instinct within our team. We feel that we can achieve what we want.”
It is this confidence and hunger that may have driven them after the Barcelona turnaround en route the Champions League triumph.
And Alisson typifies this swagger as he is often seen straying off his area nonchalantly and dribbling past opposition strikers. The sweeper-keeper averages 28.56 passes per match and that odd error does make fans’ hearts leap in their mouths for obvious reasons, but the man who arrived from Roma in the summer of 2018 for a then-world record fee of £65m is not deterred. “It’s not a pressure, I always like to play with the high lines. To help the boys to be in the high position and to help the team with the boys in behind. This is the way I enjoy playing.”
And with Virgil van Dijk around, surely he can breathe more easily? “Virgil is a top player — it’s good to have him in front of me, but the difference is not only him, it’s all the boys and the team. The way that we play help us behind a lot and help the last line a lot when we take the pressure off the strikers or the midfielders. I think this is why we are so consistent in defence and obviously, we have quality individuals like Virgil, like Joe (Gomez), Dejan (Lovren), Joel (Matip) and the fullbacks (Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson).
“So everybody is working hard to keep the clean sheets and to keep the team alive in the game. We know that in the end, we will do our job, we will score and then we’ll have the wins.”
And that assist to Mo Salah? One of the iconic moments of this Premiership must have been the keeper sprinting down the pitch to celebrate with the ‘Egyptian king’. “Which was better — the 60 yard pass or the 50 yard knee slide?” James Milner had posted on Twitter then, complete with an LOL emoji.
“The celebration was spontaneous. Given the assist to Mo was something that we train a lot — we tried that before when we played together at Roma. And then we tried it here and it happened in a special game, in a ‘derby’ against Man United. The match was almost over, and I just wanted to celebrate with the boys because I always celebrate by myself which I think is not cool. It was only one time.”
The time is ripe! Liverpool have been waiting for too long.