Long before everyone greeted Hollywood superstars, Wrexham was Rafael Benitez’s favorite destination.
In each of the first four summers of the Spaniard’s reign at Liverpool, the Reds made a brief trip to North East Wales to face the Football League side in their first pre-season friendly, with matches temporarily offering opportunities the locals were looking for ahead. a. at.
In 2004, in Benitez’s first match against Liverpool, a brace from Anthony Le Tallec gave the Reds a 2-1 victory at a time when no one expected what would come next. 12 months later, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher took the Champions League trophy to the racecourse before a 4-3 win with doubles from Fernando Morientes and Milan Baros.
The final two years of the match would see a mix of young teams and players due to foreign tournaments and other commitments, but at the same time gave Reds enthusiasts a glimpse into the wonderful young striker Besian Idrizaj, a young Austrian foreign from Kosovo. the 2-0 win in 2006 with Craig Bellamy. Then, in 2007, he scored a hat-trick in the first 26 minutes of a 3-2 win.
Idrizaj had not played a competitive first-team match since joining LASK Linz in 2005 after a successful trial, signing a two-year contract with the option of a third, but he was desperately looking for that opportunity.
He was first spotted through several scouts across the continent at the European Under-17 Championship in France in 2004, a tourcallnt won by the hosts thanks to stars Karim Benzema, Samir Nasri and Hatem Ben Arfa. Idrizaj had joined LASK from a smaller team. club Admira Linz a year earlier, and the 2004–05 would prove to be his big chance as he played 28 times for the first team. His call was known in Europe and Liverpool invited him to a trial.
“I’ve been a Liverpool supporter and it’s a dream come true to play for them,” he said after arriving during those exciting weeks at the club after Istanbul. “If you have the opportunity to move to Liverpool for a trial, don’t forget to see the current Champions League winner. I would even have swam across the English Channel just to participate. “
Still not turning 18, the Austrian was going to be a rookie in the youth ranks rather than the first team, and after suffering frustrating injuries in his first campaign, the 6ft 2 inch forward has been in comparison to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, his hero in terms of playing style and personality. he settled into the second team of Hughie McAuley and Gary Ablett for 2006–07.
They were a team, with much-loved defender Jack Hobbs from Lincoln City, defender Godwin Antwi, who lived with Idrizaj attracted from Zaragoza, exciting winger Paul Anderson brought in from Hull and Dutch striker Jordy Brouwer from Ajax, all complemented by an emerging local skill Lee Peltier, Stephen Darthrough, Jay Spearing, Sean Highdale and Craig Lindfield, those youngsters, formed the backbone of the team that would go on to win the FA Youth Cup that season.
At the time, Idrizaj spent the final weeks of the campaign on loan at Luton, playing seven times for a Hatters side at the back of the league and scoring once in the 3–1 win at Southend that also relegated the hosts. In the Roots Hall he ran with a ball over the most sensitive and finished coldly with the left. It will be his only goal in the English league.
However, he has had North East Wales, and that day at Wrexham on 7 July 2007, when his three goals came 23 minutes apart, all set up by Jermaine Pennant, whose cross for the third found a hard Zlatan-style header from the young striker.
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“I still don’t forget that day,” Qerim, Besian’s brother, said in an interview with The Athletic in 2020. “Back then, the web wasn’t like today and if we called Besian, we had to have a prepaid card. Then he called home and said, “Have you looked at Liverpool’s website?”I said, “No. What happened?” He said, “Just check it out. “He was proud.
“And it’s something to be proud of. So I wrote Liverpool FC and went to the front page, and the first news said that Besian Idrizaj scored a hat-trick in 23 minutes. I said, ‘Wow, man. Is this awesome?Did you do that?'”
If Idrizaj expected it to be his breakthrough in the first team, he was wrong. Liverpool had exercised their right to extend his contract for another year, but after wasting the Champions League final, came the summer that signed Fernando Torres, with Andriy Voronin also arriving with a loose move and Peter Crouch is still there to take on the job. Wonderful attacker role.
Benitez does not believe the Austrian is fit for a place in his squad and, after Wrexham’s hat-trick, he said with concern that “he scored 3 but he knows he has scored 4, he wants to mature in some facets of his game. “He did not participate in any other friendly that summer and eventually went on loan to Crystal Palace, a decision that did not work out due to managerial turmoil in south London, with Peter Taylor sacked and Neil Warnock content to let the youngster return.
Idrizaj, now 21 and an under-21 international, will spend the latter part of the 2007-08 season in Austria with Wacker Innsbruck, hoping to catch the eye of the senior team ahead of the European Championship they co-hosted with Poland. . .
However, it was here that things began to become worrying, with Idrizaj collapsing on the pitch, clutching his chest and needing urgent medical assistance shortly after coming into play against Sturm Graz. Perhaps looking to downplay the seriousness of the incident, as he was a footballer who would be out of contract that summer and desperately looking to play. Wacker was not offering him a permanent contract.
Now without a club, he was forced into a long hiatus that lasted for months before joining LASK Linz regardless, just to train. However, in one of his first sessions he became ill again. As in the Innsbruck incident, he was thoroughly examined by doctors and although nothing life-threatening was discovered, Idrizaj knew he had to turn his back on football for a while.
Months of anxiety followed, but in the summer of 2009 he felt in a position to move on again, aiming to return to the championship as a destination. He reportedly interested Yeovil and Nottingham Forest, before impressing in the Swansea tie and scoring two. A two-year contract, regaining the flavour of Wales, just as he had done that afternoon at Wrexham.
“We are very happy that he has signed,” coach Paulo Sousa said. “He’s a player I know from his time at Liverpool and in Austria’s foreign team. Besian has characteristics and can play anywhere on the front line. I think “He will be a wonderful asset. He’s a young player with ability, but he hasn’t played competitive football in a long time and it will take time for him to adjust to the intensity of our league. “
There is a caveat, however, Idrizaj came off the bench three times in his first weeks as a Swansea player, adding once in a remarkable League Cup defeat to Scunthorpe that saw them finish with eight men. His only start was in a 1–0 win over Plymouth in December, when he played alongside Welsh internationals Ashley Williams and Joe Allen.
However, injuries and loss of places complicated things for Idrizaj, and his physical disorders persisted. He trained with a center rate monitor and, although the doctors were happy that he could play, he always feared that he would give in. Again.
Having been part of the Swansea team that narrowly missed the playoffs in the 2009–10 season, Idrizaj travelled to Austria in the early weeks of the busy season to spend some free time with his brother and teammates. It was in Linz, in the early hours of May 15, 2010, that he suffered a cardiac arrest. After his brother and paramedics struggled to save him, he was pronounced dead at the hospital. He was 22 years old.
Tributes were paid to Idrizaj at the Liberty Stadium and Swansea observed a minute’s silence before their first home game of the 2010–11 season, a 4-0 win over Preston. The club also retired Idrizaj’s number 40 shirt, and then at the end of that crusade, when they secured their first promotion to the Premier League with a 4–2 playoff final win over Reading, the players lifted the trophy wearing shirts with an image of Idrizaj.
Goalkeeper Dorus de Vries said ahead of the play-off semi-final against Nottingham Forest: “A lot of us still talk about him. It is at all times in our thinking. He was a wonderful colleague, a wonderful teammate, but he was also a wonderful friend and that can’t be done. We said as an organization that this year would be for him and I hope we will make him proud this season. “In fact, they did.
“He’s still in our memories,” winger Nathan Dyer said after the Wembley win, along with manager Brendan Rodgers, during his own Liverpool holiday, adding: “This holiday has been a wonderful memory for him during the season. I felt like I was really in the hearts of the players and the people. “
As LASK Linz and Liverpool come together, Idrizaj’s tantalizing life and talents will be celebrated again.
He will be remembered in Linz and Swansea, and an afternoon at Wrexham gave Liverpool a glimpse of what might have happened.
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