Ryan Gravenberch‘s father has admitted he was left with happy tears by Liverpool supporters’ actions as his son came off at Anfield.
Seeing your son play at Anfield is, of course, a moment very few fathers ever experience.
Gravenberch Sr is one of an extremely select bunch to have seen their own step out onto the pitch for Liverpool, and he couldn’t contain his emotions when the supporters showed their appreciation for the Reds’ Dutch midfielder.
When Liverpool beat Brentford on August 25, Ryan’s father was there to watch a fantastic performance that was capped off by a special moment.
With the Reds 2-0 up, Arne Slot brought Gravenberch off in the 91st minute and brought Wataru Endo on in his place.
As the 22-year-old walked off the pitch, the Kop and the rest of Anfield rose to their feet to applaud the outstanding departing midfielder.
Speaking about the moment, Gravenberch Sr. explained how he reacted to the moment.
He told ESPN: “I was at Anfield [for the 2-0 win against Brentford] earlier in the season and, one minute before the game ended, Arne took Ryan off so he could get the applause.
“I was in the stands and the whole stadium stood up and applauded. I just broke down because I thought, ‘They’re doing this for my boy’.
“That was the moment where I thought, ‘This is it’.”
Ryan Gravenberch’s path to Anfield
While Gravenberch was known across Europe as an especially talented young player, there was no guarantee he would reach the heights that he is currently consistently touching for Liverpool.
Having joined the much-revered Ajax academy, otherwise known as De Toekomst (The Future), he spent eight years developing before signing a professional contract in 2018.
In August of that year, he made his debut for Jong Ajax who are the Dutch giants’ youth team in the Dutch second division.
A month later, he made his debut for the full Ajax team as they lost 3-0 to PSV. He would go on to make 102 more appearances before moving to Bayern Munich for £20 million in the summer of 2022.
The move to Germany’s biggest club didn’t go to plan, though.
Gravenberch played 34 times during his only season at the Allianz Arena – 24 appearances of which were awarded to him by manager Julian Nagelsmaan.
Just four of those 24 appearances were starts, however, and the coach later told Sky Germany: “It was complicated for him at the time because we had Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka in midfield.
“I was the new coach at FC Bayern and it wasn’t easy to put players from the German national team on the bench.
“For Ryan it was a new situation that he had to get used to because he had almost always played from the start at Ajax before.”
After a year in Germany, Gravenberch cut his losses and joined Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool.
While he showed glimpses of brilliance during his first season, the Dutchman has only really kicked on under compatriot Slot.
Playing as Liverpool’s deepest-lying midfielder, Gravenberch’s awareness, mobility and technical quality have been allowed to shine so far this season.
If summer target Martin Zubimendi were to join Liverpool at a later date, he would face a mammoth job to displace Gravenberch from Slot’s starting XI.
The Times report that Liverpool’s director of global talent, Matt Newberry, was “the scout who first watched Ryan Gravenberch perform when he was a 13-year-old and playing three years above his age group for Ajax Under-16 against PSV Eindhoven.”
Gravenberch’s Anfield emergence has been a long time coming and at just 22 years old, he has plenty of years left to prove himself as one of the world’s best.
