That Liverpool to Real Madrid is a regular trade route will do little to douse the rage Trent Alexander-Arnold’s expected move to the Spanish capital has caused. That Madrid are Liverpool’s nemesis in terms of European Cup/Champions League wins and, in recent years, two finals of that same competition, will hardly sweeten the pill, either.
If Steven Gerrard resisted such temptations, feted forebears and contemporaries were tempted and succumbed. The aristocratic hubris of Madrid has regularly robbed Liverpool of its prime talents. Not just those loved and lost. Jude Bellingham might be two years into his Anfield career by now, such a plan mooted in Liverpool’s front office, only for him to opt for the Bernabéu.
Alexander-Arnold’s move is most regularly compared to Steve McManaman’s departure on a Bosman free transfer in 1999. Within Liverpool’s depressed late-90s period, “Macca” had remained a shining light only to turn down a fresh contract. McManaman’s closing months in Liverpool red saw him accused of treachery. That a lack of transfer fee left Liverpool financially short was the common complaint, one shared with Alexander-Arnold, though the parameters are now rather different.
The right-back will very likely be departing England’s champions, having won a previous Premier League title and the Champions League in 2019; whereas McManaman could only look to 1992’s FA Cup, won as a youngster, and the 1995 League Cup, where he had been match-winner. Liverpool in the summer of 1999, after a half-season under Gérard Houllier, were rebuilding but miles behind Manchester United and Arsenal. Madrid, meanwhile, were adding McManaman on £65,000 a week, big money then even for a team of European champions during a period when their rivalry with Barcelona had become a matter of global rather than national significance.
The common view is El Macca was an unqualified success, not least because of the goal against Valencia in Paris that helped clinch the 2000 Champions League final. Liverpool’s soloist had been converted into Madrid’s ball carrier, leaving the pyrotechnics to more skilful types. It wasn’t quite that simple. The summer of 2000, when Madrid snaffled Barcelona’s Luís Figo, paying a world-record fee, proved a difficult crossroads. Doing that deal helped along accession to the club presidency of Florentino Pérez.
Paris’s hero was sidelined, an early victim of Pérez’s continuing ruthlessness, the hope being a sale back to England. Lazio were also linked, only for McManaman’s reinvention as a luxury water carrier for Figo – and soon after Zinedine Zidane – which saw him stay until 2003, collecting another Champions League title, when not coincidentally David Beckham arrived to end up playing a similar role.
“Liverpool was great, but it’s not as though I left when I was really young,” McManaman told the Observer in 2001. “I came here when I was 27, after more than 10 years at the club. Liverpool is a tiny city compared to Madrid.” Alexander-Arnold will be 27 in October.
McManaman, who eventually developed a decent grasp of Spanish, made the most of Madrid. Michael Owen followed that same route in 2004, just as vilified for running his contract down by Liverpool fans as Pérez snared him for £8m. The 25-year-old, less worldly than McManaman, struggled to assimilate himself and his young family while living in a hotel. Owen has admitted driving every day to the airport to buy English newspapers at a time before new media could take the strain of his thirst for news from the racetracks.
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A decent enough season of 13 Liga goals in 36 appearances, many as a substitute, competing with club godhead Raúl and Brazil’s Ronaldo was followed by a summer where Owen hoped to return to Liverpool. When Rafa Benítez demurred, an ill-fated move to Newcastle was set in train. Owen later revealed an annual hotline to Jamie Carragher: ‘“Does Rafa want me?” I’d say. “Does Kenny want me? Does Brendan want me?” It was circumstances that stopped it happening … by the end I wasn’t the player I had been before and they simply didn’t fancy me. I wasn’t good enough.”
If losing two locals was painful, Xabi Alonso’s departure in 2009 was another to make Reds fans wince. “We’ve got the best midfield in the world,” rang the Anfield chant, celebrating the triumvirate the Basque signing from Real Sociedad formed with Gerrard and Javier Mascherano. Alonso’s departure, for a fee of £30m, was not a case of Liverpool being sold short, though it was another Pérez pincer move made in the knowledge that the club needed to sell, the American ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett’s finances beginning to creak.
Álvaro Arbeloa also headed to Madrid in 2009, for £5m, where the one-time full-back now works as an acclaimed youth coach, but Alonso’s loss was an exposure of damaging fissures at Liverpool. Benítez’s pursuit of Gareth Barry the previous year had led to Alonso becoming unsettled. “Another season would have been too much for me,” he said in 2011.
Playing his best campaign in 2008-09 for Liverpool as they went close to a Premier League title left fans wanting more. Alonso becoming a key foundation of Madrid’s next, dominant era was little consolation. Like McManaman, like Owen, like Alexander-Arnold now, the pull of Madrid was too great for the player – and Liverpool – to resist.