Liverpool’s Uefa Super Cup hero Adrian on his journey from Betis B to European champion
- Spanish stopper watched the Uefa Champions League final on television and now he’s playing in goal for Jurgen Klopp’s side
- It’s been a long, slow trip from Spain’s lower leagues to filling in for Brazil No 1 Alisson at Anfield
Adrian San Miguel del Castillo was on holiday in Cadiz, southern Spain, with family this June.
“The Champions League final was on television, Liverpool against Tottenham,” he said. “I watched it on TV like most people I know.”
Goalkeeper Adrian had played against Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur and he knew some of their players well, but while his former opponents were going for the biggest prize in club football, Adrian was an out-of-contract 32-year-old. His last competitive game was six months previously for West Ham in an ignominious 4-2 FA Cup defeat by AFC Wimbledon.
Adrian kept fit by training alone with semi-professional side Union Deportiva Pilas as he waited for the phone to ring. Friends he’d played with for Betis B in the Spanish lower leagues were already out of football.
“I love football at that level,” he says. “The groups with the Andalusian teams are very strong. It might be humble and the crowds might be one or two thousand but the passion of those fans is special. We’d go to places like [the Spanish African enclaves] Ceuta and Melia. Or to Linense [on the border with Gibraltar] or San Fernando in Cadiz. They all wanted to beat us because we were Betis B – it was their game of the season.”