Liverpool £5m signing turned on manager after saying he 'loved' him

Benayoun

Via echo

Liverpool’s 30-year league title drought was pockmarked by a number of agonising near-misses.

From Roy Evans’ side managing to finish fourth in a two-horse race in 1997 to Steven Gerrard’s agonising slip in 2014 when Brendan Rodgers’s men lay a mere seven points from greatness

Reds fans were seemingly stuck on a never-ending cycle that raised then dashed their dreams that championship number 19 was on its way to Anfield until Jurgen Klopp finally broke the hex in 2020.

Each of those fatally-flawed title bids produced moments when it seemed the stars had aligned in Liverpool’s favour

but, of all of them, few infused more belief and hope into the veins of those desperate to see the Reds finally get their hands on the Premier League trophy than when Rafa Benitez’s 2009 hopefuls seemed to turned the tables on their perennial nemeses from the down the East Lancs Road

Manchester United, by scoring a late, late winner away to Fulham on the same Craven Cottage ground they had seen Alex Ferguson’s men beaten at only two weeks earlier.

Yossi Benayoun’s stoppage-time strike is still remembered as inducing one of the most manic celebrations of the modern era in those watching from the terraces.

And in homes and pubs up and down the land and far beyond and, in a different and kinder parallel universe, would have written the Israeli’s name into Anfield folklore for ever and a day.

His time on Merseyside ended rather sourly but should not detract from his contribution to one of the most promising yet ultimately frustrating periods in Liverpool history.

Benayoun arrived at Anfield on this day (July 12) in the summer of 2007 as an established international and proven Premier League performer but he had to battle his way and overcome adversity to get there.

Having been spotted at the age of nine as a unique and potentially generational talent, the slight young boy from Israel’s Negev desert had been labelled a genius and had his face plastered across Israeli magazines by the time he was 13.

Two years later, Ajax's global scouting network had identified Benayoun as someone who could fit into their model and they moved him and his family to Amsterdam but it proved to be too much, too young.

Although his performances on the football field saw him be top scorer for the youth team and led to the offer a four-year professional contract, the youngster and his family were unable to settle in Holland and returned home to the desert after eight months.

Benayoun recalled.

"It ripped my family,"

"It was very difficult. My girlfriend, Mirat (now his wife) was also just 15.

“It was just too hard for everyone. It was just not the right time.

"It has hard, especially for a family who had nothing. The money was important but there are lots of things which are more important.

“You have to be happy, if you are not then money doesn't matter.”

The family’s mission to support Benayoun at Ajax had been partly funded by money provided by well-wishers but, even though this was returned when they came back to Israel, further hard times lay ahead.

"There was a lot of criticism," Benayoun remembered. "The press in Israel, the journalists, are very hard.

“When I went back they wrote horrible things, saying I would never be a player, I would never be able to make it in Europe and didn't have the character. They just didn't understand."

Determined to prove himself, Benayoun trained with Hapoel Be’er Sheva and got himself into the first team at still only 16, making his mark by scoring 15 goals in 25 appearances to be fourth leading goalscorer in the division and it won him a transfer to one of Israel’s biggest clubs, Maccabi Haifa.

His first season there saw a run to the European Cup Winners Cup quarter-finals with Benayoun scoring against French giants Paris Saint Germain and, after the arrival of future Chelsea manager Avram Grant as manager,

Haifa won successive league titles in 2001 and 2002, Benayoun’s increasing profile and abilities prompting Racing Santander to bring him to Europe and La Liga.

His three seasons in Spain saw a respectable tally of 21 goals in 101 games for one of the division’s lesser lights who, aware of reported interest from Premier League clubs such as Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United as well as Real Sociedad and Deportivo La Coruna at home, sold Benayoun to agents Pini Zahavi and Ronen Katsav.

After turning down a move to CSKA Moscow, he made his bow in the Premier League with West Ham United after joining the London club in summer of 2005 for a reported fee of £2.5m,

Liverpool supporters soon got a glimpse of his mercurial talents when he was part of Alan Pardew’s side which came desperately close to beating the Reds in the 2006 FA Cup final in Cardiff.

His second season at Upton Park was more of a struggle with the Hammers only preserving their Premier League status with an unlikely win at champions Man United on the final day of the season

soon afterwards Benayoun was on his way to Anfield in a £5m deal having taken advice from the first Israeli to ever play for Liverpool.