Liverpool defender, Andy Robertson has come out to say that his football career all the way to the top was not an easy journey and he actually worked his way to the top.
Robertson’s journey to the UCL Final against Spurs started with Celtic, where he trained as a schoolboy before being released at age 15.
He has featured for Scottish third-division side Queen’s Park as he worked landscaping jobs on the side, before clinching a transfer to top-division side Dundee United.
Robertson wants everyone to know it was not luck that brought him to Liverpool, but hard work.
His words, “Not many things bug me, but if there’s one thing that does, it’s the idea that my story is a football fairytale,”
“I know when people say I’m some sort of Cinderella Man that it’s meant as a compliment. I appreciate that, but to be totally honest, it doesn’t feel like one, because it isn’t true.
“No magic wands have been waved in my direction, I didn’t win some kind of lottery to land a spot at one of the biggest clubs in the world. The reason why I’m a Liverpool player is the same reason why I’m captain of my country: I’ve worked my b*llocks off to get where I am, and by doing that, I’ve been able to make the most of whatever talent I have.”
“Take Virgil van Dijk, for example, the best centre-back in the world. How many coaches and scouts looked at him and thought he wasn’t destined for the top? He’ll tell you himself that there were plenty,”
“Mo Salah, one of the best finishers in the game today, was once discarded as not being good enough for a top Premier League side.
“Jordan Henderson must have lost count of the times he has had his ability questioned – although never by anyone who has been fortunate enough to work with him – and here he is on the brink of captaining Liverpool in a second successive Champions League final.
“I could go on and on, I really could. If these were all fairy tales, we’d have more than Hans Christian Andersen. They’re not, though. They are all examples of hard work and commitment making the difference.
“The same applies to us as a team and to Liverpool as a club. We are where we are because of our work ethic and our belief that pretty much anything is possible. That’s the reason we were able to come back from 3–0 down against a great Barcelona team. We didn’t wait for fate to play its hand and hope that it would go in our favour, we forced fate to go our way and not even Lionel Messi, the best player I have ever set eyes on, could stop that.”
“It feels good to have another crack at this final. Nobody deserves it more than our supporters, who have backed us through the good times and the heartbreak. But like us, they will know that we are up against a top side in Spurs. Mauricio Pochettino and his players will be just as determined as we are to do something special in a final like this.
“The thing that matters most is that our fate is in our hands. We know that. And if there’s one thing I can guarantee about this team, about this group of players, it’s that we will stop at nothing to try to make our supporters’ dream come true.
“If that does happen, it won’t be a fairy tale. It’ll be because we deserve it.”
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