When Inigo Perez takes up his station in the Anfield technical area on Tuesday night, a few yards away from Andoni Iraola, there could be a sense of inevitability to it. Where Iraola went, it seemed, so would Perez. So if one Basque gravitated to Liverpool, another would follow. Yet the former teammate and assistant will instead be a rival; the product not of any kind of falling out but as an unintended byproduct of Brexit.
Perez is now Villarreal manager. Perhaps, with different rules and regulations, he would still be Iraola’s second in command. But Liverpool’s history features two assistant managers who never sought the top job themselves but, propelled into it by circumstances, Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan went on to win four European Cups between them. Now their Champions League campaign continues against a man who could be called an accidental manager, who had wanted to continue as Iraola’s No 2 until he hit a brick wall in the shape of bureaucracy.
