While the football-loving world posts their own obituary to Gerrard’s storied career, Arbeloa sums it up better than anyone.
Whatever the next chapter holds, Steven Gerrard will now and forever remain immortalised as a legend of Liverpool Football Club.
While cackling opposition preserve that infamous slip in an endless circulation of memes and gifs, Liverpool fans remember the good; the inspirational, Hollywood comebacks against Milan and West Ham as well as a commitment to the club even when his team-mates were jumping ship.
The announcement of his retirement from professional football came as a shock to nobody. After all, Gerrard had fallen way off the pace even in the stately surrounds of the MLS. Yet, it brought closure to a footballing journey that so often verged on a fairytale but ended in harsh reality. Despite the Champions League triumph, the two FA Cups, there’s a nagging sense that Gerrard’s long career never got the finale it deserved. In the end, it fizzled out, firework free.
Yet, to his peers and his fans, they can overlook such details. Alvaro Arbeloa played alongside Gerrard for just two-and-a-half years before embarking upon a trophy laden spell with Real Madrid, but the impact his former skipper had on him is plain to see.
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
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