Darwin: Kickstart my Heart
How memories build the most enduring legacies in football...
Darwin Nunez’s first Liverpool league game was away at Fulham with the August sun blazing in the sky and the Thames in repose, huddled alongside Craven Cottage. That day is pickled in my memory, the sun, the dark stands, the aerial TV shots of West London suffering joyfully in the heat.
Summer had just peaked but felt like it was only getting going, a false sense of many more months to come - the empty promise of August sunshine. The grass like a snooker table, the shadows, huddled under the stands, hemmed in by the vertical lines prescribed by midday, pitch markings so fresh they could have smelled of mint. With season’s opening day came that gaping maw of potential, rolling round once a year to lend an air of fatalism to anything that happens, a cocktail of new jerseys, new signings, new old dreams.
Nunez went on in the 51st minute, with Liverpool trailing one nil. He quickly scored a backheel flick from a low cross, a ludicrous way to get a debut goal.
Causing a disturbance in the box, he assisted Salah for the eventual equaliser, rescuing something from the day. His presence just terrified defenders. Crazed looks were shared between centre backs. Wide-eyed looks that, when directed into the eyes of another person, universally means “do NOT panic”.
From that day the template was set. Darwin Nunez meant impact, in all its forms.
When people are shocked with a defibrilator in films - they go from lying down to sitting bolt upright, eyes wide, gasping for breath. Nunez had that effect on the crowd. His passion was so infectious whether it was kicking hoardings, smacking pitch invaders on the scalp or scoring a backheel flick against Real Madrid.
He had a chant in his first appearance. Which is unheard of. It was primal - NU-NEZ! NU-NEZ! Not a song with clever lyrics, just a blunt repetition, an impact thumped over and over, straight to the point. It reminds me of the Manchester United chant for Ruud Van Nistlerooy. The crowd would shout Ruud repeatedly, violently and out of sync. Ruuds would overlap, speed up and hit a crescendo that built like a rumbling volcano. These chants are the best, they harness the stadium energy in its purest form. Atmosphere builds. You feel more alive.
He was box office, however his bad moments were as memorable as his good. Sent off for a head butt on his home debut and refusing to leave the pitch, missing a hattrick of identical gilt edged chances away at Man City, and I mean really missing.
In everything good Nunez did there was a hairline fissure running through the moment that just couldn’t be ignored. The assist for Salah in his first league game; he tried to control the ball, landed nearly standing on it, slid off and the resultant pinched pass worked out as an assist in name only.
Another great goal, away at Newcastle, Trent plays a lovely ball over the top which he runs onto and his attempt at controlling it acts more like a well hit pass directly back to his own chest, which is just about concealed as a controlled take down. He takes it through and thankfully finishes well.
His chipped goal directly over the keeper’s head away at Brentford was the most cavalier decision a striker could have made in the moment bar rainbow flicking it into the air for a bicycled finish. These moments reveal a difficulty in overcoming mundane obstacles while the impossible are alluringly achievable.
I imagine he can’t quiet his mind, all the scenarios and possibilities cascading around him like broken shards of reality. To finish his chance, first he must dribble through these jagged potentials inside his own head.
This splintering decision process makes him completely unpredictable, possibly to himself, definitely to his team mates but also, crucially, to the opposition. And that’s what makes him so effective. And, ironically, ineffective.
His finest hour came at St.James Park. Off the bench, into a team away from home, down a goal and down a man. The unpredictable met the impossible.
He enters the game in the 58th minute. The home crowd sense a big scalp. Alisson has kept Liverpool in the game with a world class save. Even salvaging a draw would be a triumph.
In the 81st minute Jota plays a through ball that finds a sprinting Nunez on the right wing. The white marking of the penalty area, about ten feet away, has the allure of a finish line. He tears over it and thumps a decisive, low shot into the far corner, across the keeper. The early hit takes everyone by surprise, he’s been a subject of conversation around overthinking finishing. Here he dispenses with thought. Goal.
He runs around the back of the goal, beaming. For a split second the mic picks up his high pitched shrieking as he zooms by. This is one of my favourite details in football, it’s hilarious.
In the 93rd minute Salah picks up the ball in the exact place Jota made the last assist from. He has a defender closing in. The lane that the pass needs to go down is very narrow as there’s two defenders at different distances guarding against this exact eventuality plus it can’t hit Nunez in the heels as he runs. He hits the pass - weighted so delicately that it slows in front of Nunez who can finish first time from the exact position as last time. Goal. Nunez wheels away to knee slide screaming ‘Vamos!’ in front of the Newcastle fans.
In the post game interview they coax him out to say a few words. Alisson is beside him looking towards the ground, concentrating on every word Nunez is saying in Spanish to translate for the audience. He’s then tasked with handing Nunez the player of the match award to which Nunez again responds in Spanish. Alisson interrupts in a coaxingly friendly way trying to make him speak in English. You can tell by the body language that it’s a thing they joke about within the squad. Nunez laughs nervously and quickly tightens up, a rictus smile plastered on his face, he breathes rapidly. The interviewer pipes in. ‘Couple of words Darwin?’ he asked encouragingly.
The first time, direct finish without thinking had served Darwin well in the match and here he completed the hattrick. Holding his luminous match award, he leans in quickly. ‘Thank you for your support’ he says in staccato and starts dying laughing instantly. Alisson erupts laughing, a broad smile on his face. Every fan watching loved the guy even more. Somewhere his English tutor was watching thinking ‘thank god we got that one down’.
The currency of joy in sports is not trophies or triumph specifically, it’s memories. They carry more value that trophy wins, only a handful of teams can actually win trophies but every team has supporters, swathes of people nourished by hard won memories from their years following every match. I’m a Liverpool fan and I’ve watched the highlights of the 2019 UCL final once and that was to see if it was as boring as I remembered. I’ve watched the highlights of Nunez scoring his double against Newcastle about thirty times. And I smile every time.
Darwin Nunez matters because he is a flawed character, people can relate to that. Perfection becomes rote, a mundane consistency where all outcomes feel the same and the memories are indistinct. Your mind stops making new recollections and keeps overwriting the same tired old file.
Whether he succeeded in statistical terms is inconsequential to what matters in the end. Looking back on that sunny day in August, you can either cherish the memory and accept it for what it was, or you can dwell on the winter that ultimately followed.
I can think back to Darwin Nunez, sliding on his knees, head tossed back like a Pez dispenser, lips curled into a crude trumpet shrieking ‘VAMOS!’ at the top of his lungs.
And someone could ask ‘What trophies did he win?’. And I’d respond smiling.
‘I can’t remember’.
Brilliant to read and see man. Thanks.
If I could draw like you I might tackle his fight with Uruguay vs Colombia… standing over his peers like a famous Greco-Roman warrior. Ajax, Achilles...
Fascinating player. I wish he was still around.