Former Liverpool goalkeeper Adam Bogdan has been left in awe of a ‘superhuman’ member of the current squad at Anfield.
Speaking on The Kopite Podcast, the Hungarian left listeners in no doubt as to his admiration for positional peer Alisson Becker, who’s been our undisputed number one ever since his arrival at the club in 2018.
The ex-Bolton stopper, who most recently played with Ferencvaros in his homeland, said of the Brazil international: “It’s hard for me because I haven’t trained with him, but for me he seems to be more like a supernatural goalkeeper.
“He has an unbelievable talent ability-wise when he has to. He must be close to 100kg, but he has the legs for it. He has so much power, he’s so brave, his positioning is excellent. He’s the perfect goalie for me.”
Bogdan added of Alisson: “He’s just so powerful. He’s like pushing the grass underneath him, pushing the whole pitch away. If you could see how much he can squat, it would be big numbers in my opinion.
“To have that momentum he has, it’s similar to [Virgil] van Dijk as a defender. He can shield it and shield a player and then take the ball off him.”
Everything Bogdan said is spot-on – even after five years of watching him, we’re sometimes still mesmerised by the saves Alisson can produce.
Just a couple of weeks ago when Liverpool were a goal and a man down against Newcastle and staring into the abyss, the 30-year-old somehow tipped a powerful shot from Miguel Almiron onto the crossbar, prior to the Reds going on to win 2-1.
And yet, such brilliance is par for the course for our number one. As outlined by The Athletic, he outperformed the number of ‘expected goals on target’ against him by 10.52, the second-best return of any Premier League goalkeeper.
His 235 appearances for LFC have seen him concede less than one goal per game (207, an average of 0.88 per match) and keep 104 clean sheets (44.3% of appearance total), as per Transfermarkt.
Alisson’s £67m outlay may have seemed a gamble in 2018, but he’s proven to be a contender for the single best signing made by Jurgen Klopp in eight years at Anfield. Bogdan’s lofty praise of him isn’t over the top in any way, shape or form.
#Ep89 of The Empire of the Kop Podcast: EOTK Insider with Neil Jones🎙️