Stefan Bajčetić: Liverpool's present as well as its future
The teenager is here to stay, and his man-of-the-match performance against Everton will be one we are still talking about in years to come
I hate to say ‘I told you so’ but…
If you weren’t on board the Stefan Bajčetić train before Monday night, then you certainly are now. And if you’re still not, then you need to sort yourself out.
A performance like that? In a game like that? At 18 years of age?
Sign. Me. Up.
Bajčetić’s 13th game of professional football was his best yet, no question. Good enough to earn the player of the match award on his Merseyside derby debut. Good enough to earn him a standing ovation from the Kop. Good enough, surely, to have Scouse kids (and maybe a few adults) playing with their socks rolled down this weekend.
It was the kind of display that sticks in the mind, which we later look back on as crucial as we discuss a glittering, successful career. Remember when he was a kid and he took the p*** out of Idrissa Gueye and Abdoulaye Doucouré?
I’m old enough to remember Steven Gerrard’s early games at Liverpool, when it quickly became clear that this was no ordinary ‘academy prospect’. I remember crossfield passes against Celta Vigo, thunderous tackle after thunderous tackle, two goalline clearances in an Anfield derby which were celebrated like goals.
I remember Trent Alexander-Arnold breaking into the Reds’ first team, and being generally unconvinced - despite my old colleague Andy Kelly’s protestations - until he returned for pre-season with a swagger, pushing experienced players out of the way to take - and score - a 25-yard free-kick in a Champions League qualifier against Hoffenheim.
I had a quick look on lfchistory.net this morning. Hoffenheim was Alexander-Arnold’s 13th senior game for Liverpool. That Merseyside derby was Gerrard’s 11th. Bajčetić, a Baker’s Dozen worth of matches into his Reds career, is already making a similar kind of impression, and looks capable of treading a similar kind of path. And believe me, I don’t say that lightly.
There are some players who just stand out when you watch them, who just look like footballers, and he’s one. It’s the way he stands, the way he carries himself on the field. His head is always up, his shoulders are always checked. He is always ready to react, to receive, to play. He's in the game, every time.
I’ve been, I’d say, pretty cautious about him during his recent stint in the team. Liverpool have been dire for weeks, and when that happens there is a danger of overreacting when something good turns up. ‘Everyone’s s*** but this guy’s amazing’, that sort of thing.
The former, thankfully, isn’t true - and how nice it was to see the Reds’ big guns shaking off their collective amnesia on Monday night - but the latter just might be. Bajčetić is a boy who plays like a man, and if he carries on working and gets a bit of luck, he’s got the potential to be an absolute diamond.
“Since he started playing with us he’s our best player maybe,” Mo Salah told Sky Sports. Bajčetić, stood beside the Egyptian, could only smile. “It’s crazy, to be fair,” the youngster added. “A year ago I was playing U18s football, now I’m playing at Anfield. Crazy.”
You might not like this next sentence, and please don’t take it as a suggestion that Liverpool don’t need substantial midfield reinforcement this summer, but Bajčetić is going to save the club millions going forward. Already, the £225,000 compensation fee paid to Celta Vigo at the end of 2020, just before new Brexit rules were introduced, looks like it could end up going down as one of the Reds’ best pieces of business. Matt Newberry, the academy recruitment chief, pulled off a blinder there, and in the likes of Kaide Gordon, Ben Doak, Bobby Clark and Trent Kone-Doherty, there are a few more talented teens waiting in the wings too.
Bajčetić, though, has already moved past them all, and past other, more experienced players too. In the space of six months, the young Spaniard with the Serbian heritage has put himself front and centre as Klopp prepares to rebuild. There are doubts around many Liverpool players heading into the summer, but this lad is one we know will be sticking around. He is the future, as well as the present.
He deserves to be celebrated today, that’s for sure. He deserves all the praise and all the attention. He’s got work to do still, loads of it, and Newcastle and Real Madrid are on the horizon, but let’s not forget to enjoy and appreciate what we saw last night.
I’m old enough to remember a young Scouse midfielder called Billy Kenny bossing a Merseyside derby for Everton back in 1992, and the buzz that created around the city. There was a fearless kid, from the Scotland Road area, doing what we all dreamed of doing, getting stuck right in and announcing himself to the world.
‘The Goodison Gazza’, Peter Beardsley called him, but Kenny, a fearless, classy ball-player, was never able to deliver on that vast promise. Sadly, he suffered with injuries and personal issues and he was retired from professional football by the time he was 21.
He goes down as one of the classic footballing ‘what-ifs’, a cautionary tale around the pressures and pitfalls of top-level sport. There’s a play on at Liverpool’s Royal Court Studio this April. ‘Whatever happened to Billy Kenny?’ it’s called. It’s a question many have asked in Liverpool down the years.
He’ll always have that derby to look back on and smile about, though. The night he ran the city and everyone saw. The night he could do anything and feel everything. The night he was on top of the world.
Bajčetić can say the same this morning, though something tells me this won’t be his last defining game in Liverpool red.
This boy’s a bit special. Told you so.
Elsewhere…
Speaking of ‘I told you so’, Liverpool fans can say the same this morning after UEFA published the full independent review into events surrounding the Champions League final in Paris last May.
Talk about a day of big victories.
The report, led by Dr Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, found that UEFA bore “primary responsibility” for the chaos which unfolded outside the Stade de France, where Reds supporters were subjected to tear gas and pepper spray attacks, kettled into dangerous crushes and later subjected to attacks and muggings at the hands of unpoliced gangs of local youths.
The police and the French Football Federation were also criticised, while subsequent attempts to shift blame onto supporters, including by UEFA’s own events CEO Martin Kallan, were described as “objectively untrue”. Suggestions of late arrivals and masses of ticketless fans were dismissed as “completely misleading” by the report.
The collective actions of Liverpool fans, the report found, had in fact been “instrumental in protecting vulnerable people and averting what might well have been more serious injuries and deaths. It is remarkable that no one lost their life.”
Just let that sink in for a second. Remarkable that no one lost their life. At football. When will the people who organise this sport ever learn?
UEFA, belatedly, offered an apology on Monday, and said it would announce in due course a special refund scheme for supporters who attended the game. It promised to makes "appropriate changes and arrangements" for future finals.
Let’s hope it keeps its promise, eh? Nobody should have to experience what Liverpool fans experienced that night. Nobody should go to a football match and end up fearing for their safety, for their life.
That’s the situation that UEFA and the French authorities created, though. A magnificent night turned into one of terror, the effects of which are still being felt in many quarters. I know plenty of fans who won’t travel away with the Reds in Europe any more, and many, many more who’ll never return to Paris.
This report won’t change that, sadly, but hopefully it provides a little closure at the end of a distressing time.
You’ll Never Walk Alone.