Alexander Isak’s Liverpool debut provides box-office glamour despite rust
Barney Ronay
As non-goalscoring club debuts go, Isak’s 57 minutes at Anfield made for a fascinating spectacle
Now witness the firepower of this fully operational Death Star. Four months, one record transfer and an endless rolling multiverse of internet rage since his last club game, Alexander Isak has now finally rematerialised in physical form.
As rust-laden, non-goalscoring club debuts go, Isak’s 57 minutes at Anfield made for a fascinating spectacle. In part for the sheer event glamour, the rubbernecking aspect, like witnessing a personal appearance at a shopping centre by your favourite controversial reality TV star. But also for the sheer data overload in a thrillingly open game dotted with wildness: from a Diego Simeone crowd‑surf red‑card climax, to the endless tactical complexities that continue to flow from Arne Slot’s attempts to re-gear his
Liverpool team along these giddily attacking lines.
The key takeaway: it’s going to be open. There will be high‑wire energy. There will be an avalanche of goals. There will also be periods of vulnerability, as there was at Anfield, where for at least an hour after the opening 10 minutes it felt like
Atlético Madrid were basically winning the game.
And because this is football there was even time for some comedy. Nine minutes into his debut, with Liverpool already 2‑0 up, Isak still hadn’t touched the ball. Maybe, the thought occurred, he’s never going to touch the ball. They’ll win the treble and he’ll never touch the ball, just do a lot of peripheral running about while football happens nearby, the most confusing glory-laden 55-game season ever staged, perhaps some kind of one-man act of protest against the spectacle.
In the event Isak did touch the ball, his first as a Liverpool player a wayward return pass to Ryan Gravenberch. His second was a moment of authentic muscle memory, a glide and a snipe sideways past Conor Gallagher. In between he lurked in the centre, asserting his own gravity. He looked good. Egg yolk boots, white ankle wraps, red No 9 shirt. Isak has a distinctive and endearing physicality, gangly legs, soft, tender brown eyes, the shark‑like way of moving.
How good is he? Nobody really knows. Isak doesn’t know. This is a footballer in state of mid‑career bloom, reaching up towards his own ceiling. There has even been a degree of pshawing already, pursed lips at the value placed on a footballer with two good goalscoring seasons. But Isak’s value lies in his rarity.
The reason there are fewer specialist goalscorers is because being a specialist goalscorer isn’t enough. The role is so much more complex. We need a finisher. But you’ll also have to be a team cog, press unit, pass rotator, endurance athlete, digester of data. And do all this from the earliest age just to get through the pathways when no one knows if anyone is any good, so the metrics have to be ticked off.
Isak has all this, or has had it so far. Here he had his best spell close to half-time. With 38 minutes gone he took a pass from Florian Wirtz, half-turned and shot with no backlift, proper striker stuff, a goal Isak will score when he isn’t coming off four months out. From the same spot moments later he yawned inside and shot again.
There was a lovely give and go, a nudged return pass to Wirtz. And of the two things worth saying about Isak’s debut this was the big positive. He brought the best out of Mohamed Salah, although this was less balance or interplay, more an act of status assertion, alpha-dom. With six minutes gone Salah had a goal and, technically, an assist, his free-kick deflected in off Andy Robertson. Salah’s goal was a lovely thing, a glimpse of his ability to paint these tiny miniatures, the Sistine Chapel on a grain of rice, jostled by three defenders, feet battering the turf, going right, left, then into the far corner.
Salah has had a drop‑off, has perhaps missed Trent Alexander‑Arnold, moping a little, like a labrador pining for its departed owner. This was a glimpse of actual Salah, the same super slick nightmare of power and speed on the right. Isak combined more overly with Wirtz, and while this involved quite a few errant passes and mistimed runs it was still progress.
The other side of this was that openness at the back of midfield. Every game Wirtz plays as a No 10 it will leave the risk of the midfield pivot being outnumbered. And Atlético were always in this game, roused by Simeone appearing on the touchline diffusing his own unique main‑character energy: Soprano-style black suit, strange scary hair, eyes like globs of mercury, a jawline you could grate cheese on. Even Simeone’s shoes are frightening. Where do you buy shoes like that? On a submarine? At a secret arms dealer convention hall?
Atlético pulled it back to 2-2, before going down to Virgil van Dijk’s late winner. Slot will wrestle with these questions of balance and openness. For now he can also bask in the possibilities.
