Overlap

Dalglish did not head inside right away. Leaning against the wall by the tunnel entrance, he waited quietly for a few minutes. He waited for the match to end. He waited for Du An's emotions to settle a bit before raising a hand to push open the dressing room door. Du An was the only person inside. Still in his kit, he sat on the bench, head bowed, staring at his boots, lost in thought. Hearing footsteps, he looked up, startled to see who had entered, and murmured a greeting: "Mr. Dalglish." "Oho." Dalglish didn't mention the red card. Instead, he looked around the dressing room, smiling with a nostalgic sigh. "The conditions now are far better than when I first came to Liverpool. Private lockers, hot showers, bright lighting... We didn't have any of this back in my day." Du An shrugged. "Really? It's always looked like this since I arrived. I've never known anything else." He had an inkling that Dalglish was here to comfort him and had braced himself for a lecture, but Dalglish simply sat down beside him, leaving the match entirely unmentioned. "Aye. To you it's just an ordinary dressing room, but to me it's night and day. The first time I stood in a Liverpool dressing room, nobody knew who I was. To be honest, I could barely recognize myself. I was only fifteen that year." Du An looked surprised. "I remember you only officially joined Liverpool in 1977." "Good memory," Dalglish laughed. "I signed in 1977, but my story with Liverpool started way back in August 1966. "Back then, a Liverpool scout spotted me in Glasgow, and Bill Shankly sent a personal invitation for a trial. Me and another Scottish lad, George Adams, traveled south together. We came out of Lime Street Station and were put up in the YMCA. The club paid for ten nights. I remember every single detail crystal clear. "It was my first time leaving home. Lying on that hostel bed, I didn't sleep a wink the whole night." Du An listened, spellbound, completely forgetting about the red card. All he could think was that he, too, had barely slept the previous night. Outside the dressing room, Aslett was just leading the squad over when Heighway hurried up and stopped him. Glancing through the crack in the door and catching sight of Dalglish, Heighway immediately waved for everyone to turn back. Lowering his voice, he instructed, "Don't go in yet. Head to the training pitch for warm-down stretches. Come back in twenty minutes." "What about Du An...?" Aslett frowned, worried that today's red card might hurt Du An's confidence. In football, the ability to handle pressure was crucial. "He'll be fine." Heighway waved dismissively, his eyes fixed on the door. "Kenny's in there. The lad went through wild highs and lows on his debut today. Having Kenny chat with him will do more good than a hundred words from us. If he can clear this hurdle, today's match will be an asset that serves him for the rest of his life." Aslett nodded. "To be fair, he played brilliantly. That long ball—not a single one of our other U16 midfielders could have pulled that off." "Don't worry, we all know it," Heighway said with a smile. "Come on, let's not block the corridor." Inside the dressing room, Dalglish's tale continued. "The first time we went to Anfield, Shankly was already waiting for us at the door. Two green lads, having the manager wait for us in person—George and I felt like grown-ups in an instant. "As soon as he saw us, he smiled and said, 'Good morning, lads! Go get changed into your training kits.'" Dalglish couldn't help chuckling as he spoke. "Speaking of which, the training kit back then was bloody awful. Nothing like the slick fabrics Gerrard and Carragher wear today. Heavy cotton, washed stiff as a board. I was scrawny back then, and once I put it on, it felt like being bundled up in a burlap sack. Anyone seeing me would've thought I was a fisherman from Aberdeen." Du An couldn't help letting out a laugh. "When you get old, you love digging up old memories," Dalglish chuckled. "The youngsters keep their eyes on the future, while us old timers are always living in the past." His smile softened, and he went on: "Traveling from Anfield to Melwood for training, we rode on a double-decker bus. When I climbed on, my legs were shaking so hard I could barely take a step." Du An nodded vigorously in shared experience. "Sitting on the bench today, not only were my legs shaking, but my stomach was churning so hard I almost threw up." Dalglish burst into hearty laughter, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Completely normal. "I was even more hopeless back then. George and I got on that bus and kept nudging each other, unable to believe what was right in front of our eyes. "The entire bus was filled with stars you'd only ever seen in the papers. England had just won the World Cup, and Roger Hunt was sitting right in front of me—so close I could smell his aftershave. "Beside him was Ian Callaghan, and ahead of him was Ian St John. St John scored goals for fun; he was a hero to us Scots. Growing up, I'd watched him play for Motherwell and Scotland at Ibrox and Hampden Park, yet that day, he was sitting just a couple of yards away from me. "Then there was Willie Stevenson, whom my father idolized most of all. And Tommy Smith and Ron Yeats—those two midfield powerhouses, capable of scaring off an opposing forward with a single glare. "Shankly told us, 'Take a seat anywhere, lads.' That snapped George and me out of our daze. We made a point of sitting as far from those two as possible, terrified of getting on the wrong side of those fierce enforcers. "Only after spending time around them did we realize those superstars didn't have an ounce of arrogance. They cracked jokes the entire way. I can't remember what was said now, but I remember that bus being full of laughter. "Forty years have passed, yet whenever I hear St John's trademark laugh at Anfield, I still catch myself laughing along with him." At this point, Dalglish's laughter faded, replaced by earnest gravity. "It was the men on that bus who forged Liverpool's traditions: unity and brotherhood, humor and wit, diligence and hunger, and the fighting spirit to defend the red shirt with their very lives. That is the rawest DNA of iron-blooded Liverpool!" Du An sat up straight without realizing it, hanging on every word. Naturally, he understood Liverpool's iron-blooded spirit. Now Dalglish had laid bare its true source: the team Shankly built, the one that had truly raised Liverpool to greatness. The bitter frustration from the red card had vanished into thin air amidst this tale from forty years ago. Du An couldn't help wondering: would he ever become one of them? A legendary figure like Dalglish had once been nothing more than an inexperienced kid standing before Shankly. And Dalglish had fulfilled every bit of Shankly's expectations. Du An's breath hitched at the thought. Was Dalglish to him now what Shankly had been to Dalglish back then? Could he live up to Dalglish's expectations? A conversation from forty years ago seemed to overlap, four decades later.