Arrivederci, Divock Origi: a Liverpool legend like no other
With the Belgian set to join AC Milan, it's time to celebrate his extraordinary Liverpool legacy.
What exactly defines a legendary figure in the context of football? For a term so widely used, its meaning is highly ambiguous and open to individual interpretation. For some, a ‘legend’ is defined by longevity and loyalty to a particular club, above all else. Others might argue a player can only be considered as such after racking up a certain number of major honours throughout their career, whether that include individual accolades, team trophies, or both. Or, a player might earn legendary status by producing multiple iconic moments of significance which become forever embedded within a club’s folklore. Sometimes, it has a lot to do with luck and circumstance.
Occasionally, a player fits every single criteria, like Steven Gerrard, where there’s no argument to be had. Ultimately, though, it’s a subjective term which usually creates plenty of scope for debate. Luis Suarez and Fernando Torres, for instance, were unequivocally two of the best strikers Liverpool have had this century – but being a legend is about much more than pure talent alone.
In Suarez’s case, he’s certainly up there in the conversation among the most gifted footballers ever to wear the red shirt. Neither player, though, was at Liverpool for long enough, nor did they win enough, to be categorised as legends, I would argue. Had Liverpool managed to win the Premier League title in 2008/09 under Rafa Benitez or in 2013/14 under Brendan Rodgers, rather than narrowly missing out on both occasions, it’d be a very different story.
Torres and Suarez could hardly be blamed for Liverpool’s lack of silverware during their respective spells at the club, but despite their many scintillating performances and exceptional goal returns, no trophies for the Spaniard and a solitary League Cup triumph for the Uruguayan means they fall short of legendary status. (There’s also a discussion to be had about how a player’s legacy can be tainted by the circumstances around their departure and what they go on to do in their career thereafter.)
By contrast, you have players of Jamie Carragher and Sami Hyypia’s ilk, who, despite never being the best players in the world in their position (as Torres and Suarez arguably both were for a period in their prime), go down as bona fide Liverpool legends, with 1201 appearances between them, alongside a glittering collection of domestic and European honours. In today’s squad, Jordan Henderson fits the same sort of bill.
Indeed, much of the current vintage are already very much club legends, such is the raft of silverware and euphoric memories they’ve produced so far under Jürgen Klopp. The likes of Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker and Trent Alexander-Arnold, meanwhile, would even get in an all-time Liverpool XI for many people.
And then there’s Divock Origi.
If you were to tell the story of his Liverpool career to someone who doesn’t watch football, it’d be difficult to make it sound believable. Even now, nearly eight years after signing from Lille as a 19-year-old, with 174 appearances in a Liverpool shirt, he’s that much of an enigma that it’s practically impossible to determine what his true level actually is.
What can be said with absolute certainty is that he is a modern day Liverpool legend in the truest sense of the word.
When he belatedly arrived on Merseyside in the summer of 2015 after spending the previous campaign on loan at Lille, expectations weren’t exactly sky high – particularly after he’d been named in L’Équipe’s Ligue 1 worst team of the season (despite scoring nine goals in all competitions). A teenage Origi had shown flashes of his potential in the 2014 World Cup for Belgium, and at £10m, his transfer was hardly a major risk for Liverpool, but no one really knew quite what to expect.
Having been shunned by Rodgers almost entirely throughout the first couple of months of 2015/16 in favour of Christian Benteke, it was Klopp’s arrival from Borussia Dortmund in October 2015 that really kick-started Origi’s Liverpool career. Klopp openly admitted that he’d tried to sign Origi for Dortmund one year prior, and so it came as little surprise that Origi started each of the German’s first four games in charge. Clearly, he’d already seen something in Origi that he knew he wanted to work with.
It took a while for the goals to start flowing, but following a League Cup hat-trick against Southampton and a stoppage-time equaliser against West Brom at Anfield, Origi was clearly on an upwards trajectory. In April 2016, Klopp once again showed immense faith in Origi, selecting him from the start in both legs of the Europa League quarter-final against Dortmund, even with Daniel Sturridge fit and available at the time. Origi responded by scoring home and away against Klopp’s former side, also netting a brace against Stoke at Anfield in the league.
All of a sudden, Origi had well and truly arrived as a Liverpool player. His confidence was flowing, he looked settled within Klopp’s system, and while there were still aspects of his game with obvious scope for development, Origi appeared to have the world at his feet. He had that rare combination of being able to operate as a target man, capable of holding defenders off with his physical strength, while simultaneously being a nifty dribbler with bags of pace, enabling him to stretch opposition defences with darting runs in behind.
In a parallel universe where Ramiro Funes Mori didn’t make that sickening, challenge early in the second half of the Merseyside derby at Anfield, which Everton went on to lose 4-0, Origi’s Liverpool journey may well have taken a very different path. He’d scored the opening goal in the game, his 10th goal of the season, and was in untouchable form. The damage inflicted on his ankle by Funes Mori’s cowardly stamp effectively ended Origi’s season at the worst possible time, preventing him from playing any part in the Europa League semi-final victory over Villarreal, and limiting him to a late cameo in the final defeat to Sevilla.
A debut season which had offered so much promise came to a crushingly disappointing conclusion both for Origi and for Liverpool. Still, he was able to recover and play an important role in Liverpool securing a top four finish in 2016/17, scoring 11 goals and making 43 appearances across all competitions – more than any other player in the squad (albeit, 22 of those appearances came from the bench).
A run of five goals in five consecutive games between late November and early December in 2016 further underlined Origi’s value to the squad, and when push came to shove, with Sadio Mané out injured and Liverpool embroiled in a tense battle with Arsenal and Manchester City for Champions League qualification, Klopp started Origi in seven of Liverpool’s final eight games. Everything that has happened since has been made possible by the foundations built that season.
Following the arrival of Mohamed Salah from Roma, and with Roberto Firmino establishing himself as the unorthodox linchpin of Liverpool’s fluid front three, Origi found himself at a crossroads, ultimately securing a deadline day loan move to Wolfsburg to secure more regular game time and continue his development in a different league.
Ostensibly, Origi’s time in the Bundesliga didn’t quite go to plan. Despite clocking up over 2000 minutes in all competitions, he only returned seven goals as Wolfsburg narrowly escaped relegation via the play-offs – though one of his last contributions, a goal against Holstein Kiel to help keep Wolfsburg up, was a crucial one. Reflecting on his time in Germany, Origi emphasised the positives he’d gained in terms of his resilience and maturity in the face of adversity.
Upon returning to Liverpool in the summer of 2018, no one – not even Klopp, or Origi himself – could possibly have envisaged what would unfold over the course of the following campaign. There had been murmurings of interest from various clubs over the summer transfer window, but no move materialised. Origi spent pretty much the first four months of the 2018/19 season out in the cold, unable to force his way into Klopp’s settled front three, which had been supplemented by the arrival of Xherdan Shaqiri.
By early December, Origi’s only game time had come in the final 15 minutes of Liverpool’s 2-0 defeat away to Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League group stage, replacing Adam Lallana when the contest was already effectively over. He then had to wait nearly another month for his next outing, which, as it happened, was a night that changed everything.