Andy Robertson: Football’s Reminder

ARTICLE WRITTEN BY JEROME THE METROGNOME

Artwork by the very talented Mr.Benson

In the movie “Up in the air”, George Clooney’s character attempts to soften the blow of being laid off by showing the man the hidden opportunity within his circumstance- “You know why kids love athletes? Because they follow their dreams.” I’ve often thought about this and I came to realise that there might be some truth in this. Why do we love sports and sportspersons? What makes us so highly invested in their success or failure? In their journeys? Everybody loves a good story, and sports delivers us good stories regularly.

The trajectory of Andy Robertson’s football career is one such story. From being released by Celtic to riling up Lionel Messi at Liverpool’s greatest night at Anfield, his rise has been meteoric, a fairytale. But it is the timing of its occurrence that might hold the most weight for some. You see, sometimes sports can also benumb us to human excellence. Maybe life does. As we grow older, we grow accustomed to the wonders that awed us in our childhood. We’ve seen it all before. More importantly, as we grow older, so do our heroes, and by the time we are adults, the heroes we grew up idolising become part of the past. Sports is brutal, and so often, we watch our heroes fail, this makes us wary of new heroes. In the absence of an emotional attachment to the sport, the bond with our sporting heroes can become our sole focus. Some people root for the prodigy, the precocious talent realising their full potential, some root for the underdog, the guy who beat the odds. Andy Robertson is the talent that beat the odds.

The news of Liverpool signing Robertson from the relegated Hull City was met with tempered expectations and trepidation. This was still a Liverpool remembered more for spending 100 million trying, and failing to replace Luis Suarez, than the smart, savvy Liverpool we know today. Mane, Salah, Robertson have all played a part in changing LFC’s transfer reputation. The signing of Andy Robertson, though, is the one that signifies the club’s in the pink condition the most. For it is under the radar signings like his, that show the assembly line of successful transfers at work. The scouts did their job in uncovering a talent, the recruiters did their job in getting him cheap, and the manager did his in making him a world-beater. Every department of the club worked in perfect unison.

Another ingredient of a good story is luck. That opportune twist of fate that converts a “what if” into a “what is”. Robertson or Robbo as he is endearingly called by the Liverpool faithful, had his fair share of it. This story could have been different if LFC had signed Ben Chilwell as they were originally rumoured to be and maybe Robbo would have grown disheartened and frustrated in the Liverpool wilderness if Alberto Moreno had not been injured while in the form of his life. But Ben Chilwell was not signed for whatever reason, and Moreno did get injured, and here we are.

Andy Robertson has all the makings of a star. He has the fairy tale that inspires you, the game that is sufficiently obvious enough to not make his claim as one of the top Leftbacks in the world today, a dubious one. He also has the affable nature and down to earth personality that has made him Liverpool’s working-class hero. Still, his importance in the larger scheme of things can go unnoticed.

We are used to becoming cynics with age. In a game as cutthroat as football, players fall through the net much more than they actually make it, one injury can change the entire trajectory of your career. In the context, one would not be wrong to be bemused by Liverpool making a signing from Hull City. Sometimes players surprise us. They turn out to be much better than we hoped. Rarely does a player surprise you and make his way into the very top echelons of the game and even more rarely does he do it as fast as Andy Robertson. Sample this, 2017- relegated with Hull City, 2019- Champion of Europe. Granted the Liverpool team is littered with such stories, but the Andy Robertson story sticks out to you, as one, if not the most inspiring.

There is a lot to love about the player. He has the grit and attitude to go with his talent, his work with the Liverpool foodbanks indicate a humility that fans desire, his personality is also evident enough in press commitments that we don’t have to worry about him being too “docile” or “shy”, qualities that have come to be looked upon as undesirable, perhaps questionably so. You don’t try and perturb the greatest player of your generation if you’re not fearless, which is what Andy Robertson did in that famous victory over Barcelona. All the ingredients are there, and the timing of his story makes it even more special.

Leicester’s EPL triumph is often called a “fluke” or a “miracle”, seldom to be repeated. Since then, the richest teams have largely had the most success, the usual suspects have continued to win the major honours. The football world moves lightning fast. A year could be entirely too long in the sheer amount of achievements we witness. In the era of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, achievements are normalised. We expect them. The game is also dominated by an expansive network of scouts, data and global exposure that has enabled us to see plenty of wonderkids snapped up for big money that have gone onto to fulfil their promise. Hazard, Neymar, Mbappe are all big talents that have lived up to their billing. Those sorts of fairytales are much more common now. Robertson is different. He is the talent that fell through the gap. Anybody who has seen him play knows his talent is undoubted. Yet until Liverpool gave him the platform, it remained unacknowledged, and so, he is the talent that fell through the gap but came back. The underdog that realised his potential.

At a time when one could be becoming immune to human excellence, courtesy a Messi or Ronaldo, Andy Robertson gives us a good old comeback tale to remind us all, that these stories are still possible.