Klopp's Brazilian duo feel the weight of history at Wembley

For Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino, duty with club and country brings the constant challenge of living up to the great names who preceded them.

Bringing the glory days back to Anfield is proving as tricky as restoring the Seleção’s status as world leaders, but today provides an opportunity to make a start.

Victory over Manchester City in the Capital One Cup final at Wembley would bring Liverpool’s first trophy in four years, and only their second in the last 10 seasons.

It would be special for their two attacking Brazilians, too; Firmino has never won a major trophy, while Coutinho’s only silverware at senior level came when he was a frustrated fringe player at Inter Milan, although he was a member of his country’s Under-20 World Cup-winning side of 2011. Both players want some top-level success to call their own.

“I was in and out of the team at Inter Milan,” Coutinho said. “I was on the bench for some finals but I feel more part of the team at Liverpool, so it will mean a lot more to me winning this time.

“Everybody needs to win titles to be happy; not only here, but at any club. To be happy, to feel confident and make history, you need to win titles and this can start on Sunday.”

The journey from the streets of Brazil to Wembley has been anything but straightforward, but for both men, football was a calling from an early age.

Coutinho, perhaps, had the marginally more comfortable upbringing, in what he has called a “nice residential area” near to the Favela da Mangueira, one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest shanty towns. Yet even though his father Jose Carlos, who will be at Wembley today, was an architect, the young Coutinho’s life was not one of luxury. He grew up playing futsal on a concrete pitch in the favela, a couple of miles from the Maracana.

At the age of seven, he was taken along to a local football academy by his father, and soon attracted the attention of scouts at Vasco da Gama. Despite being initially reluctant to attend a trial with the club, Coutinho soon flourished, to the extent that Inter Milan agreed a deal to sign him when he was 16. Two years later, he moved to Italy with his parents and his girlfriend Aine, now his wife.

It proved tough going for all concerned. Coutinho struggled with injuries, and even when he was fit, rarely played; while his parents found it difficult to adapt to life in Italy, with his father frustrated after giving up his job to join his son in Europe.

As Coutinho was loaned to Spanish club Espanyol, his mother and father returned to Brazil. In La Liga, the playmaker rebuilt his confidence, and an opportunity to move to Anfield soon followed.

That was three years ago, and although Coutinho is still not comfortable with conducting media interviews in English, preferring to use an interpreter, it is clear that he feels at home on Merseyside.

“The climate is very different here than it is in our country, but we’ve already got used to it, as we have to,” he said. “It’s easy because I have friends here.

“It’s still a bit difficult to understand when people from Liverpool speak but we’ll try it little by little.”

For Firmino, football offered a way out of Maceio, on Brazil’s north-east coast; a city regularly cited as one of the world’s most dangerous because of its high murder rate.

His route towards a successful professional career was aided by family friend Marcellus Portella, then the dentist for his local team Clube de Regatas Brasil, who became Firmino’s agent, and guided him to Figueirense after a rejection by São Paulo.

Four-and-a-half years in the Bundesliga followed with Hoffenheim, where the attacking midfielder had several encounters with Jürgen Klopp, then Borussia Dortmund’s manager. Firmino, who moved to Liverpool for £29 million in July, knew what to expect when Klopp arrived in October.

“He’s an excellent manager and has been showing to everybody how great he is,” said Firmino.

Until the trophies start to arrive, though, the pressure will build, as both players have learned at international level.

Neither Coutinho nor Firmino were part of the Brazil squad humiliated by Germany at the World Cup two years ago, but were involved as their country were knocked out of last year’s Copa America on penalties by Paraguay at the quarter-final stage.

Both hope for more joy at club level today. The chance to get the better of their Brazil teammate Fernando would be gratefully accepted too.

“There’ll be Brazilian players involved in this match, both on our side and theirs,” Firmino said. “I hope it will be a great match but also that the Brazilians from Liverpool do better and we end up as the cup winners.”

Source: Telegraph

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