One Liverpool player has today become the answer to what, in time, will become the answer to a brilliant trivia question for Reds fanatics.
Sunday 11 August 2024 will go down as the day on which LFC played two matches in the space of just over six hours at Anfield, thrashing Sevilla 4-1 at lunchtime before a teatime goalless draw against another LaLiga side in Las Palmas.
Arne Slot inevitably fielded two entirely different starting line-ups for either match, with the composition of the substitutes for the respective games also bearing very little similarity.
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However, there was one player who not only featured in both matchday squads but also played in both matches – Tyler Morton came off the bench in the 82nd minute against Sevilla and the 67th minute against Las Palmas.
Coincidentally, he replaced a Dutchman in both instances, coming on for Ryan Gravenberch in the former fixture and Cody Gakpo in the latter.
When Liverpool last played two first-team fixtures in such close proximity in December 2019 – the Carabao Cup quarter-final against Aston Villa followed by the Club World Cup semi-final against Monterrey less than 24 hours later – the squads were completely different for those games.
There’s a very simple reason why – the senior squad was in Qatar for the latter, with Neil Critchley’s under-21s fulfilling the domestic cup match in Birmingham.
Therefore, Morton has today achieved what we’re all but certain is a unique feat in LFC’s 132-year history by playing in two first-team fixtures on the same day, an incredibly rare distinction which’ll make him a trivia buff’s delight.
His total game-time was only just over half an hour, but the 21-year-old midfielder can lay claim to something that few, if any, of the hundreds of players to represent Liverpool FC have done, duly writing a curious footnote in Anfield folklore.
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