Prior to the signing of Alexis Mac Allister, Liverpool had only nine World Cup winners in their club history. Mac Allister, who recently helped Argentina lift the World Cup in Qatar, is the Reds’ first signing of the summer and bolsters their midfield department. He is the third player to be signed after winning the Jules Rimet trophy, following Karl-Heinz Riedle in 1997 and Bernard Diomede in 2000. Mac Allister was a key cog in Argentina’s World Cup-winning campaign, playing 555 minutes of a possible 690.
There have been five Reds to win the World Cup while at the club, Roger Hunt (1966), Ian Callaghan (1966), Gerry Byrne (1966), Fernando Torres (2010) and Pepe Reina (2010). Two had left Anfield before claiming the greatest international honour, with Alvaro Arbeloa and Xabi Alonso both members of Spain’s triumph in 2010 after leaving Liverpool in 2009.
Mac Allister is now part of an exclusive club that could call themselves a world champion and he has said “The dream was to win the World Cup and I have done it. I could retire now. But I still enjoy playing football.” Don’t be hanging up those boots any time soon, Alexis. There’s plenty more success to come, now in the red of Liverpool!