On this day in 2018, the mood was still sombre in the immediate aftermath of Liverpool's crushing Champions League final disappointment against Real Madrid in Kyiv.
The journey to get there had been an exhilarating one. Those nights against Porto, Manchester City and AS Roma were a joy to behold, creating iconic moments and fond memories which would endure for many years to come. As much as it was a painful blow at the time, it did feel like a staging post for this team to build from as opposed to the end of something – which, of course, emphatically turned out to be the case the following season.
But still, it was hard to escape the deep sadness at the way it all unravelled at the final hurdle. What should've been a night of glory was overshadowed by Mohamed Salah's cruel Sergio Ramos-induced injury and Loris Karius' nightmare. To see those players who'd invested so much ultimately left empty handed for their endeavours was an enormous shame.
For Jürgen Klopp, meanwhile, it represented a sixth consecutive final defeat, providing further ammunition to those determined to attach the 'perennial bottler' label next to his name. Two-and-three-quarter seasons at the helm, but still no silverware in the cabinet.
Just a couple of days later, though, those dark clouds lifted and the pervading gloom of the final was replaced by a renewed sense of optimism and vitality, almost in an instant. There's no better tonic for the taste of defeat than the announcement of a marquee signing – but even more so when it comes completely out of the blue without anyone having even the slightest prior clue that it was about to happen.
Especially in the social media age, it's incredibly rare for any Liverpool transfer to break without at least some reports in the days and weeks beforehand, whether from overseas outlets, national media or Merseyside sources, let alone a £43m transfer of the calibre of Fabinho from AS Monaco.
It wasn't just the fact that Liverpool fans had been craving a top class, specialist defensive midfielder since the days of Javier Mascherano which added to the excitement, but also the manner in which it unfolded which took everyone totally by surprise. The timeline was as follows:
- 6.46pm UK time: La Chaîne L'Équipe journalist Betrand Latour tweets "Fabinho should join Liverpool for 55M € + bonus". No more information given. Is he saying it will happen, or that he thinks it should happen? Have Liverpool even made a bid yet? At this point, no one really had a clue if it was anything concrete, and the replies were mostly incredulous. After all, it's not uncommon for Liverpool's name to be tenuously thrown about in all kinds of hypothetical deals which never actually materialise.
- 7.13pm: Mohamed Bouhafsi of RMC Sport claims Liverpool have offered €50m plus bonuses for Fabinho. The two clubs are engaged in negotiations, he says, and Fabinho is "interested" in the idea of playing in the Premier League. Encouraging signs, and it seems to be gathering some momentum, but it's still early days. Wait and see what the UK-based media have to say...
- 8pm: Boom! When Paul Joyce posts transfer news, you know it's legitimate. "Liverpool want to make Fabinho their first summer signing and are closing in on deal worth an initial £39.3million," he says. Now it's time to start believing. Maybe in a few more days or weeks, it'll be sorted...
- 9pm: No. Messing. About. Bang on 9pm, the official Liverpool twitter account announces: "Welcome to #LFC, Fabinho!" with a slow motion video revealing the man himself, already kitted up and looking resplendent at Melwood.
And there you have it. What a Monday night it was. An entire transfer saga condensed into two hours and 14 minutes, start to finish, which makes you think it must've been more or less in the can well beforehand, given he'd already completed media duties at Melwood by then.
When you think just how protracted and back-and-forth the negotiations were for the likes of Naby Keita and Virgil van Dijk, this was so swiftly wrapped up it was almost absurd.
There was barely even enough time to jump on YouTube and feast on Fabinho compilations, write articles or record podcasts about what kind of player he was and how he'd fit in before he was officially unveiled as a Liverpool player.
It was this triple-layered effect of Fabinho simultaneously being such an exciting signing in his own right, announced with barely any warning, and at an opportune moment to snap people out of the post-Kyiv slump.
As it happened, Fabinho was the middle one sandwiched in between the arrivals of Van Dijk in January and Alisson Becker in July, a trio of signings within the space of seven months which radically transformed Liverpool's spine and drastically accelerated the team's evolution under Klopp.
Now, Fabinho is the least heralded of the three, not because he has under-performed relative to expectations – he has been magnificent – but more down to Van Dijk and Alisson being unequivocally the best in the world in their respective positions. Fabinho was arguably in that bracket himself for much of 2019 prior to his injury, and with any luck will return to those levels at some point when football resumes.
Before he'd even kicked a ball for Liverpool, though, he'd already made a seismic impact. It was as though Fabinho's arrival confirmed to everyone that Liverpool were only going to bounce back stronger and use Kyiv as a springboard to future success. From then on, they've never looked back.
