With Sadio Mane packed off to Bayern Munich, Johnny Nic tales the opportunity to gush over his replacement, Darwin Gabriel Nunez Ribeiro…
Who’s this then?
Darwin Gabriel Núñez Ribeiro will be 23 next week. Born in Artigas, Uruguay, he is a 6ft 2in striker who has just signed for Liverpool.
He got his start at Penarol in 2017 for whom he played 22 games, scoring four times. In 2019, scouts from Almería liked the cut of his jib and snaffled him for around four and a half million dollars. He spent just a single season in the Segunda Division. He was the league’s joint fourth top scorer with 16 goals. Former Boro striker Cristhian Stuani topped the list, incidentally.
He was very impressive, so much so that Benfica emptied their penny jar out, handed over €24million and took him to Portugal. He hit the ground running, making five assists in his first four games for the club. He scored 14 in 44 in the 2020-21 season but a mix of injuries and Covid led to him going four months without scoring.
However, last season he seemed to have adjusted to Portuguese football and although he missed the start of the season with a knee knack came roaring back with 26 goals in 28 league games, 34 in 41 games overall, including two strikes against Liverpool in the Champions League quarter final loss, 6-4 on aggregate.
He ended the season winning the Bola de Prata award as top scorer of the Primeira Liga. This wonderful campaign made alarms go off all over Europe. Here was a superb young striker at a club that always sells its best players.
Liverpool turned up, said they’d pay cash for him, no questions asked, handed over a dumpy bag full of 64 million quids-worth of tenners and promised another £21 million in add-ons if the lad turned out to be any good. Everyone nodded sagely and celebrated the move with a custard tart.
He has yet to get a full cap for Uruguay but has played for the under age teams and seems likely to make his first-team debut before the World Cup in Qatar. If so, he will face Portugal and some of his old team-mates, along with South Korea and Ghana.
Why the love?
It isn’t hard to see why Jurgen Klopp thought that this was a perfect Liverpool player. He’s tall, powerful and fast. He can press high and hard. Although right-footed, he can play on either side of a front three or through the middle. The assumption is that, just like Luis Diaz, he will fit in perfectly. With Mo Salah, Diogo Jota and Robert Firmino already at the club,…
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