As Liverpool right back Trent Alexander-Arnold picked up Mo Salah's pass on the run with a deft first touch and stung a shot past Manchester City's Ederson with a second, most people were watching the ball while stating for the thousandth time that the right-back-that's-really-a-midfielder is the club's new Steven Gerrard. For those of us with a severe reaction to any hint of nostalgia, however, there was something else that took control of our minds until there was nothing left but a leather tongue and an elastic band.
Trent was wearing Adidas Predators.
Not just any Predators, either. The man many Scousers see as the spiritual successor to Stevie G's Istanbul heroics—and David Beckham's England ping machine—was debuting a new pair of my generation's most vaunted boot in celebration of moving to the Three Stripes. The equalizer against the current Premier League champions was the icing on the cake: the sort of goal indicative of a Liverpool team that's lost only once in its last 24 league games, and music to Liverpool—and Adidas exec—ears.
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Alexander-Arnold has not had the easiest of rides from football pundits, with fans seemingly more interested in his sporting flaws than his preternatural skill. The man won the Champions League and Premier League at 20, and was named in both competitions' teams of the season. He's one of the best passers of the ball in world football and grew up within walking distance of his club's ground, the latest in a long line of local lads made good at Anfield. Add the boots that every football fan under the age of 40 wanted as a kid, and you have what faceless Twitter accounts would call “proper football heritage.”
Heritage is certainly the name of the game for Trent himself, if the launch campaign is anything to go by. “It all started for me in 2005,” he narrates. “Istanbul was what really inspired me back then. That game, those players… the boots.” It's a recogniable experience for most young football fans who look up to their sporting heroes, except this particular young fan has gone one Premier League title better than any of his. Sorry, Jerzy Dudek.
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Next year marks the 30th anniversary of the first pair of Predators, so no doubt this is just a teaser of what's to come—Adidas has confirmed that Saturday's boots are only a fun cameo before the bigger official reveal of a brand-new edition in the new year. But now Alexander-Arnold has joined the Adi-juggernaut, suddenly we have the tantalizing prospect of seeing an England midfield three of Trent, Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice all line up in the latest iteration at Euro 2024—a winning combo if we ever saw one.
This story originally appeared on British GQ with the title “Trent Alexander-Arnold teases a new era for the Adidas Predator”
