Hugo Ekitike has now shown his true colours. While battling injury at Anfield, the French striker has classily reached out to a Liverpool youngster following his release by the club.
Only a select few players become professional footballers, with the agony of being let go of at a young age, from your boyhood club, a harrowing experience.
Unfortunately, rising Reds starlet Romane Dimine has recently experienced this rejection, with the U12s talent taking to Instagram to confirm that he has been released.
Sharing a photo from outside the Liverpool Academy in Kirkby, the youngster took to his Instagram channel to post an update.: “My Liverpool journey has come to an end I have been released from the club.
My journey will now begin somewhere else this isn’t the end it’s only the beginning. There’s no words for how I’m feeling right now but I will be back stronger.”
Hopefully, for his sake, he can find a new club to call home soon, with not every Liverpool youngster going on to become the next Steven Gerrard or Trent Alexander-Arnold at their boyhood club.
Dimine would have had his spirits boosted by Hugo Ekitike reaching out to him, though, following the announcement, as the injury-hit Frenchman showed his class by replying to the starlet with a heartfelt message of support.
Ekitike’s classy response
Ekitike knows all too well the heartbreak of not making it at a big club.
Indeed, before embarking on his Liverpool adventure, the 23-year-old would notably flop at Paris Saint-Germain, with only four goals picked up across 33 games for the Parisian giants.
Thankfully, he didn’t let this bump in the road stop him from clinching a major £79m move to Liverpool last summer, with the lethal number 22 registering 17 goals for Arne Slot‘s men this season.
Still, despite going on to become one of Slot’s leading men in the attack, which has won him some additional caps for France, Ekitike clearly has a humble side, as he reached out to Dimine when the U12s player revealed he had been released.
Replying to Dimine’s post, the eight-time France international showed a genuine caring side when stating that the youngster should keep his “head up”.
This is a remarkable show of solidarity, considering Ekitike is going through his own nightmare situation right now.
Ekitike has his own setback to recover from
It was a cruel twist of fate against his old club; during the second leg of Liverpool’s Champions League quarter-final with PSG, the towering striker collapsed to the ground in significant discomfort.
Clutching onto his Achilles, it was revealed post-match – after Slot’s side were dumped out of the competition 4-0 on aggregate – that the 23-year-old had ruptured his Achilles tendon.
Slot said he was “devastated” with Ekitike missing the rest of the season domestically, and also the approaching World Cup for his nation.
Yet, the Dutchman did also state, when revealing to the media the extent of the injury, that there are players who come back “even stronger” from such horrible setbacks, with Ekitike hopefully falling into this bracket.
It will be a painful road to recovery, but the Reims-born striker will know that both Liverpool and his national manager, Didier Deschamps, will have his back, just as he has shown with Dimine.
He hasn’t been completely down in the dumps, either, since this season-ending injury occurred, with the number 22 also taking to social media to congratulate his teammates after their last-minute win in the Merseyside Derby.
Ekitike simply encouraged for Slot’s men to “keep going” in their bid to finish inside the top five positions in the Premier League, after the dramatic victory vs Everton on Sunday, with the £79m star clearly a popular figure in the dressing room, even when he is restricted to the treatment room.
The road to recovery will be long, but Ekitike will hopefully be back to his confident Reds self down the line, to continue his fine start to life on Merseyside.
