If you think back to Liverpool’s 2018/19 Champions League-winning season, it’s easy to forget that Barcelona, Everton and Tottenham Hotspur-slayer Divock Origi was not meant to still be a Reds player.
Having spent the 2017/18 season narrowly avoiding relegation on loan at VfL Wolfsburg, the Belgian had been expected to leave Anfield that summer only for Liverpool’s asking price to not be met. Instead, he would enter the final year of his contract and feature sporadically before writing his name into Reds folklore forever.
He wouldn't make his first appearance of the season until a late substitute appearance in a 2-0 loss away at Red Star Belgrade in November 2018, before marking his first Premier League outing of the season with that famous last-minute winner against Everton a month later. The rest, as they say, is history. Come 2019, he was a matchday squad regular once again as he emerged as ever the man for the big occasion, with his decisive goals against Barcelona, Newcastle United and Tottenham in the Champions League final essentially earning him a new three-year deal against the odds.
