[lfc-news] Clever Xabi sets the pass mark - Observer

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The Observer 22 May 2005
Clever Xabi sets the pass mark
By Guillem Balague

'And coming off is number four, Don Xabi Alonso.' That's what you would
hear from the speakers at the Anoeta Stadium in San Sebastián whenever
Real Sociedad took off their midfielder in the two years before he moved
to England. 'Don' was used as a mark of respect, one that has been
replaced at Anfield by the phrase 'Xabi is class', which can be heard
from supporters all around the ground after every precise pass from the
Basque. In other words, very often.

Xabi Alonso seems older, both on and off the pitch, than his 23 years.
He is already the player his team-mates look for, the one who never
hides, the manager's coach on the pitch. He looks as though he has
already seen it all and done it all and he walks around at Liverpool
with the same serenity with which he assumed the role of leader at Real
Sociedad.

His father, Periko, was a member of the Sociedad team that won the
club's only two league titles, in 1981 and 1982, before moving to
Barcelona. Although Xabi was a baby when that team provided nearly half
the Spain team and never saw his dad play, he shows his football
intelligence by challenging the popular misconceptions. 'People say he
was a physical player, a defensive midfielder. I have seen the videos
and yes he was strong, but he knew how to play the ball, how to
distribute it.'

Xabi knows, too. He is an organiser, the axis of a team, with a special
vision and understanding of the game; the sort of leader who does not
need an exaggerated outburst of anger to be heard or respected.

He is modest, too. 'Me? Leader of what?' he repeats every time he is
asked about his role. 'The midfielders are important, they have to offer
themselves to receive the ball and make good use of it, take choices,
try not to lose the ball and defend. But I don't feel like a leader at all.'

Steven Gerrard is the player most widely seen as the key to Liverpool's
fortunes but Alonso's name is chanted before the cap tain's when the
team run out at Anfield. His partnership with Gerrard has not yet
completely taken off because both have suffered from injuries and the
odd suspension at different times during the season, restricting them to
fewer than 20 games together. It could be the foundation for Liverpool
for years to come.

'Stevie covers lots of ground, goes forward more often and has an
impressive shot,' says Alonso. 'I keep the ball, offer myself for the
pass, mix short and long passes and go forward less frequently. In
England in the past, when long balls were the rule, the central midfield
player did not have to link the game. But I see more and more players
like that in the Premiership now.

'Liverpool have always been a bit more continental and I have been told
about Jan Molby, Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness. You can see and hear
the reaction in the stadium when you make three consecutive good passes.
Anfield supporters have been taught good football.'

Dalglish describes Alonso as 'the pick of the players that have come in
this season' and Molby is flattered by comparisons made in the stands
between him and Liverpool's new star. 'A lot of things he does, I
suppose I was capable of,' says the Dane. 'Central midfield is a busy
area and obviously it helped having the right team-mates around me, but
I could play a game at the pace that suited me. It's possibly more
difficult to do that today because a lot of people can only play at a
hundred miles an hour. He's got a good head on a young pair of shoulders.

'Watching the last 15 minutes of the second leg of the Champions League
semi-final against Chelsea, I couldn't help thinking that if he'd been
there [Alonso was suspended] he might have made another goal with one
pass and put the game beyond them. What was needed was a little bit of
calmness in the middle of the park. Alonso would've been in his element.'

Alonso wears none of the glitzy paraphernalia that tends to come with
being a football star these days and, while he lived with his parents in
San Sebastián, he now lives in a flat where he watches only English TV
(no Spanish satellite), to help him to learn a new language, and
continues his business studies. It is a stone's throw from Liverpool
city centre, where he can be seen walking, absorbing the atmosphere,
immersing himself in the business of living in a foreign country.

'It is a great new step in my career,' he says. 'I really hope to be
here for a long time. I was sold on the club, the new project with Rafa
Benítez, and we can already see his hand in everything that is happening.'

He certainly has no regrets. 'I had it in my head I was staying at Real
Sociedad when all the rumours were flying around about me going to Real
Madrid. And when I was told, after long negotiations, I was going to
Liverpool, I was set on that. It was not disappointing not to go to Madrid.

'What is happening in Liverpool is a huge adventure and I was ready for
this change in culture. I've accepted what England can offer and I feel
part of it. I used to live in San Sebastián with my family and friends,
but now I spend most of the time with people from the club. I must adapt
and I am happy to do so. People in Liverpool are very welcoming. I
hardly miss anything from home; maybe a big fresh-fish meal, but I've
even found places to buy the same tinned tuna I used to eat at home.'

Alonso's calm character and footballing repertoire were the stuff of
legend when he was still a teenager. He spent the first six years of his
life in Barcelona, but as soon as he moved to San Sebastián, he started
playing football on the city's La Concha beach. At Antiguoko, the modest
team where his career started before he signed, with his brother, for
Sociedad, they say: 'Nothing that happens in a match unsettles him.'

What about that yellow card in the first leg of the semi-final against
Chelsea, when Eidur Gudjohnsen appeared to dive? Distraught on the
pitch, by the time he left the ground Alonso had accepted it. 'I was sad
to miss the second leg, but all I hoped was that we made it to the
final. These things happen,' he says.

In January 2001, with Sociedad bottom of the league, new manager John
Toshack recalled Alonso from a loan spell with neighbouring club Eibar.
Alonso had been sent there by the former coach Javier Clemente (who in
the meantime had been replaced by Alonso's father for a brief two-month
spell before Toshack arrived). Alonso told his manager that he was 'not
afraid of responsibility' and the Welshman made him captain in the hope
of avoiding relegation. Alonso was 19. Sociedad stayed up.

Toshack could not recall a former youth-team player causing such an
impact at the club: 'Everyone seemed to play better when he was on the
pitch,' he says.

Molby adds: 'He's got what I call football intelligence. He doesn't have
to score and he's never going to be a double-figures man, but you can
tell he gets more pleasure out of creating chances for others.

'I remember seeing him play for Sociedad and he impressed me in Euro
2004 when he came on for Spain a couple of times. Every pass he made, I
was saying, "That's the right one, that's the right one." When he signed
for Liverpool, a lot of fans would've said, "Xabi who?" But I knew this
kid was special. He'll only improve, too, when Benítez builds a team
that'll keep the ball better. You can tell Alonso is absolutely central
to his plans.'

Alonso had no particular footballing hero as a youngster. 'I used to
enjoy watching Ronald Koeman, even though he didn't play in my position.
I loved the way he hit the ball, the talent he had to position himself.'
Alonso has never played in defence, attack or even in a wide position,
which is why he distributes with the pace and understanding of a more
experienced player. 'When you have done the same thing for so many
years, you end up doing it naturally and effortlessly,' he says.

Iñaki Sáez, who gave Alonso his international debut in 2003, is
convinced he will be the brains of the Spain team for a decade. 'He has
a fantastic range of accurate passing, sees football with an
extraordinary clarity and plays with two touches,' Sáez says. 'He stops,
thinks and passes. He moves the game in the opposite way to where it's
going and will learn to steal balls because he has the body for it.'

Sáez gave Alonso control of central midfield in the return leg of the
play-off for Euro 2004 against Norway. His job was to pass the ball and,
of 581 Spain passes that night (Primera Liga matches average 442), he
made 98, more than anybody else, and more than one a minute. His comment
afterwards? 'We played very comfortably and that helped the stats.'

As Liverpool team-mate Jamie Carragher says: 'Passing-wise not many
players in Europe are on a level with him.'

Benítez says that he could be as influential to today's team as Dalglish
was to the class of the late 1970s and 1980s and as Dennis Bergkamp has
been at Arsenal. Dalglish scored the winner in the 1978 European Cup
final, against Bruges, at the end of his first season at Anfield.
Nothing would please Alonso more than emulating that achievement in
Istanbul on Wednesday.

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