by The first touch is a little heavy. Still, he retains possession and drives into the right channel at breakneck pace. He is approached by Nathan Aké. He writhes theatrically on the grass for a while, grimacing and holding his ankle. He has a small argument with the referee. He chases a long ball as the next phase of the game restarts. He almost collided head-on with a colleague. He deflects his run into the penalty area. He scores an awkward header from four yards. Tears towards the corner in celebration. He rips off her shirt. He reserves.
Darwin Núñez’s first experience of English football was against Manchester City in the 2022 Community Shield. In retrospect, this last passage of the game (a minute of pure, liquid Darwin) was the moment when the squad was established. The hurricane. The cult hero. The agent of chaos. Andy Carroll with a slightly higher price tag and a similar command of English. From the moment Núñez arrived on these shores, accompanied by a series of unflattering clips on social media and vague comparisons to Erling Haaland, he would discover that his role as a kind of pantomime cow had largely been pre-assigned to him.
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Jürgen Klopp always said that Núñez was a long-term project and not a short-term solution, a striker with a high ceiling and a much more rounded game than many believed he was capable of. But as the glitches and errors began to pile up during an indifferent first season in the Premier League, no one was willing to listen. Even now, as Núñez has begun to gain pace in an evolving Liverpool team, those first impressions have proven stubbornly persistent.
But not everyone sees Núñez as a fun figure. Back in his native Uruguay, Núñez is a much more aspirational figure: a man who rose from poverty and built himself into one of the best strikers in the world thanks to a relentless thirst for improvement. There you are much more likely to hear praise for his phenomenal work rate, his clinical touch in front of goal and, above all, his enormous importance to a nation shedding the baggage of the past and building a young, exciting team under his address. by Marcelo Bielsa.
One of Bielsa’s first big decisions upon taking office in May was to discard Luis Suárez and Edinson Cavani and make Núñez his pet project, the axis of his attack, with all that that implies in a Bielsa team. In the short term, it is a relationship that has generated instant rewards. With five goals in his last four games, Núñez is the leading scorer in South American World Cup qualifying, helping Uruguay to its first victory over Brazil in 22 years and its first victory in Argentina since 1937. In the long term, it is Liverpool who can simply reap the benefits.
It all started with a Zoom call over the summer. Núñez was injured in both of Uruguay’s international matches in June, but the new coach still had duties for him. Bielsa had spent months diligently studying footage of Núñez for club and country and had noticed his tendency to attack the space between opposing centre-backs. “He corrected some things,” Núñez says later. “For example, there is a play where the entire opposing team is back. He [Bielsa] He tells me: ‘Don’t run in front of the second centre-back, run behind’. “Then the center loses my position.”
Of course, there was more than this. In Bielsa’s vision, the lone striker has an integral role that goes far beyond goals. The 9 has the responsibility of leading and organizing the press, using body shape and curved runs to direct the ball to more favorable areas. Neither Cavani nor Suárez, both 36 years old, have the engine to fulfill that role anymore. By varying and timing his movements, the 24-year-old is also better equipped to create space and provide opportunities for his teammates.
Watch Nunez for Liverpool this season and you can see some of these changes in action. Against Newcastle in August, both of his late goals came after runs into the right channel, away from the centre-backs. On the counter-attack against Nottingham Forest in October, Núñez is seen instinctively charging through the center before remembering to slow his run outwards, aiming for a goal for Diogo Jota. Creatively, this is shaping up to be the most productive season of Núñez’s career, with an assist every 145 minutes in all competitions.
None of this is meant to underestimate the role Klopp and Liverpool have played in Núñez’s development. In fact, one way to interpret Núñez’s recent improvement is as a testament to how a player can benefit from different and complementary influences. Bielsa always made clear his admiration for Klopp when he was at Leeds, paying tribute to the appeal of his game and the enthusiasm that Klopp transmits to his players.
But when asked to expand on the differences between Klopp and Pep Guardiola, Bielsa gave an interesting answer. “I have the feeling that Guardiola’s intellectual construction is not accessible, at least for me,” he says. “Klopp is a coach with his own stamp, but he is more accessible to being decoded. Creating resources to boost creative play is what sets Guardiola apart.” In short: Guardiola’s teams have a complexity that no other coach (not even the great Klopp) can match. So in the hands of a master like Bielsa there is always room to unlock new layers and levels.
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There is a view that, with Haaland, Rodri and Ederson shrugging off injuries and a grueling international break on their legs, this is not the worst time for Liverpool to go to the Etihad. The 4-4 draw against Chelsea a fortnight ago showed how City can sometimes be vulnerable to teams that run straight at them, force them to defend one-on-one and control them with clever moves.
But for Liverpool, a club that is not so much fighting for the title as trying to convince itself that it is, the real battle is psychological. City destroyed them 4-1 in the corresponding match last season, and despite Liverpool’s improvement, what they have lacked is a spectacular performance against serious opposition. There have been draws at Chelsea and Brighton, a rare defeat to Spurs and a run of wins at Newcastle. Meanwhile, it has been eight years since they last beat City in the Premier League.
In many ways, Núñez is a microcosm of all this: a player who has overcome the pains and turmoil of growing up, the lost games and the missed opportunities, the rotation and the ridicule, and who despite all his progress still needs to catch up. tested against the standard to which one day aspires. reach. For weeks, Liverpool have looked as if they could be the finished article without having conclusively proven it. You feel that the time for excuses has passed.
