At the age of 23, Trent Alexander-Arnold is already extremely successful.
The Liverpool and England defender has developed into one of Europe’s elite right-backs, with athletic prowess and play-making skills rarely seen in his position.
Off the pitch, however, Alexander-Arnold’s grounding proved crucial for him to stay sober, despite being a vital cog in one of the best football teams in the world.
While many in his position may spend their newfound wealth on cars, homes, or entertainment, Alexander-Arnold’s focus is much closer to home.
He may be a local icon for Liverpool’s biggest team, but he still lives with his parents, does the dishes and learns habits that help keep his life “clean and healthy”.
By staying in a place where everything is stable, he has reached the heights he has, explains Alexander-Arnold.
“I always think young players rush things,” he told DailyExpertNews Senior Sports Analyst Darren Lewis. “You start to get some money and young players always think the first thing is to move, buy a new car, that sort of thing.
“And then the environment just isn’t the same anymore. You live at home. You have your parents to lead you on and make sure everything is clean and tidy, the dishes don’t pile up and you go home in a nice, clean environment and things like that.
“While living at home (on your own), breakfast and dinner, you just think, ‘I’ll do that later’. And then you come in from training and you’re just not in a clean, nice environment. So I have never felt a rush to get out of the house I’ve always had the right messages.
“I’ve always enjoyed having family around me. And they’ve kept my feet on the ground and pushed me to the level I’ve reached so far. So I don’t think there’s any rush for me to a decision.”
fans
Ever since he can remember, Alexander-Arnold has been a Liverpool fan.
From living just five minutes from the team’s training ground — he recalls asking his mother to take him and his siblings to glimpse their “idols” through the cracks in the walls on their days off — until watching them on the weekends, he was in love with the club from an early age.
To celebrate Liverpool’s dramatic Champions League victory in 2005, Alexander-Arnold was one of thousands who took to the city to welcome their heroes to the open-top bus parade.
Although he was a huge fan, his own introduction to the club was one of pure luck. “It was like a six-month camp and the invitation was sent to my school and it was like, ‘So who wants to go?'” he said.
“And as you can imagine, everyone in the class raised their hands. We have to get names out of a hat, and luckily my name was chosen. I went there with some classmates and after that – I don’t know” I I don’t know how long it was — I think maybe 10, 15 minutes, a scout went to my mom and said, ‘We want you to bring him here if you can?'”
And as he explains, “The rest is history.”
Since making his first-team debut in 2016, Alexander-Arnold has become one of the most dynamic full-backs in the world, terrorizing the defense from a deep position with his precise crosses and accurate through-passes.
In his 161 Premier League appearances, he has scored 10 goals, provided 45 assists and has a remarkable record of 114 wins and just 19 losses.
But despite that record, Manchester City’s brilliance under Pep Guardiola, Alexander-Arnold and winning the Liverpool trophy has been thwarted.
Yes, they’ve won a lot during his first-team time, but the Reds have narrowly won the Premier League title four times in the last five years — twice by just one point.
The brawl between the two English juggernauts has become must-watch TV over the course of a season, with Alexander-Arnold admitting playing Manchester City is Liverpool’s “biggest game of the season”, despite traditionally more intense rivalry was with Everton and Manchester United.
“I think, historically, there will always be that tension and the rivalry with Everton and with United. But I think now it’s for different reasons. I think there will always be a dislike of Liverpool and Everton and Man United .” ” he said.
“It will always be the case that no matter where either team ends up in the league, whenever it happens, there are always very heated matches and both fans really want to win it the most. But I think for different reasons, now Man City is the biggest game of the season, the best team in England, one of, if not thealso the best team in the world.
“And of course they are the team that set the pace, set the benchmark for the rest of the league. Four leagues in five years is something that not many teams can say we’ve done. So it’s hard for us to look get past them and look elsewhere for motivation. Our motivation is if we stay in and around City then you’re in a good place for the past four or five years.”
Season finale
While last year was another successful season for Liverpool and Alexander-Arnold personally – with both FA Cup and League Cup winners’ medals added to the trophy cabinet – it ended on a sour note.
The match was delayed 35 minutes as Liverpool fans struggled to enter the Stade de France, with French police using tear gas on fans held in tightly packed spaces.
After the game, despite the club’s report of events and fan details, Reds fans were partly blamed for the disruption, with French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin saying “that the disturbances caused were related to a massive influx of spectators and a large number of counterfeit tickets.”
Senator Laurent Lafon, chairman of the Committee on Culture, Education and Communications, who co-authored the report, attributes the violent scenes in the finale to “a series of breakdowns that took place in a rather vague administrative and decision-making framework”.
And to Alexander-Arnold and the rest of his teammates, he admits the whole situation was “strange.”
“The messages that were broadcast through the stadium were late arrivals from fans and things like that… and you believe what you hear and see in those situations,” he said.
“Then, of course, it was only after the game that we found out the truth and what happened, what happened. But I think the way the fans dealt with it – when it happened, during the game and after the game and the months after that — was excellent.
“It’s something we as players and as a club are very proud of, the way they’ve made sure the truth comes out. They’ve made sure the fans aren’t just blamed for things they’ve done. ” done.”