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Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold and Bayer Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso during the clubs' meeting in the Champions League last November(Image: Richard Martin-Roberts - CameraSport via Getty Images)

As a boyhood Red, Trent Alexander-Arnold grew up in admiration of Xabi Alonso and has made no secret of the fact.

As he prepares to leave Liverpool whilst the Spaniard has now announced his intention to depart Bayer Leverkusen as manager at the end of the campaign, it makes one wonder how long ago their union was foretold.

Of course, the defining factor in this is that Anfield will not be the workplace in which they meet, that would most certainly now be Real Madrid.



Somewhere along the path the 26-year-old's mind was made that the Spanish capital would be his destination, as can only be expected to go through after informing Liverpool of his decision to leave.

Days later, Alonso has followed, wishing farewell to Leverkusen, the club he has managed for two-and-a-half years, with it similarly reported that the job which is currently Carlo Ancelotti's beckons.

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That is the brutal way of football sometimes as only 15 months ago talk of the town was the homecoming of a former Liverpool midfielder to replace Jurgen Klopp in the dugout.

Alonso instead said he was not leaving Germany, put down to his personal development as a coach, yet he was ignorant to the fact that Ancelotti's time at Madrid was at most running through to 2026, the same year his Leverkusen deal was due to expire.

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Alexander-Arnold the same, making 'easily the hardest decision of his life', nevertheless he was aware of outside interest otherwise there will have been little argument in leaving the Premier League champions.

They embraced last November as the full-back went to retrieve the ball when Liverpool and Leverkusen met at Anfield in the Champions League.

Alexander-Arnold posted this to Instagram after the 4-0 victory, a moment that may have been heartwarming at the time, but as there was no attention paid to the significance of that 4-0 win it is now bound to create opposite feelings amongst loyal Reds.

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"I think it's just about replicating the players that I wanted to be when I was younger – the likes of [Steven] Gerrard, Alonso, who were unbelievable passers of the ball.

I always wanted to be able to pass a ball like that," Alexander-Arnold told the official club website back in 2019.

"Obviously I still look up to them massively and sometimes I still find myself watching clips of them – especially Gerrard I always watch his old clips, his old games.
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