It was without even touching the ball that 16-year-old Ben Doak had those inside Liverpool's Kirkby academy scrambling off their seat in anticipation.
Just over an hour had passed of Doak's first official outing for his new club, who he had joined from Scottish Premiership champions Celtic earlier this summer for a fee of £600,000, and the explosive winger was already developing a unique reputation on Merseyside.
After being identified as Liverpool under-18s' main threat, the Scotland youth international had Middlesbrough full-back Oliver Samuels touch-tight on the halfway line of the Academy's main pitch. Arriving at pace, Doak instinctively allowed the ball to run through both his and also the defender's legs before spinning away and chasing the pass he had fooled Samuels by leaving.
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With spectators taken aback by the innovative craft of the 16-year-old, who only finished his school exams earlier this year, Doak then displayed composure beyond his tenders years to pick out Ranel Young, who teed up Lewis Koumas to convert his fourth, and Liverpool's sixth, goal of a sensational morning's work for Marc Bridge-Wilkinson's newest intake of scholars.
The young Reds had once again earned themselves a reputation as the Premier League North's early season pace-setters as Koumas' four-goal haul and a debut double for Doak saw them dispatch Lee Cattermole's Middlesbrough side with ease on the opening weekend of the new season. Showing early signs that they could challenge Manchester City for the title.
But despite Koumas' impressive exploits in the final third as he netted a first-half hat-trick, it was Doak's 25-minute double that dominated the post-match discussions of those leaving Liverpool's secluded academy base. Which is overlooked by the club's £50m state-of-the-art AXA Training Centre.
Doak, for sure, will have aspirations of one day becoming a permanent fixture at the Reds' senior headquarters and following in the footsteps of current academy graduates Curtis Jones and Trent Alexander-Arnold - a process which is expected to begin once he pens his first professional contract when he turns 17 in November.
It was only earlier this year that Celtic handed their home-grown prodigy an abundance of first-team opportunities in a last-ditch attempt to ploy to try and persuade Doak that Glasgow was the best place for him to continue his recent, rapid evolution.
Being readied by manager Ange Postecoglou for a 22-minute cameo against Dundee United in January, supporters on the terraces of Parkhead were left mistaken by the announcement of his introduction by the PA system with some believing it was a member of the opposition's cavalry gearing up to try and stifle the Hoops' Premiership title bid.
Seeing as his introduction saw him leapfrog the likes of Kieran Tierney and Karamoko Dembele to become the club's second-youngest debutant at 16 years, two months and 18 days. It's no surprise that those attending the high-staked affair had not been briefed on their latest talent.
However, Scotland under-17 manager Brian McLaughlin wasn't surprised by the youngster's momentous achievement after being first alerted to the winger's talent some four years earlier. When Doak was just 12 years old.
"I wasn’t surprised to see him make his debut so young," McLaughlin exclusively tells the ECHO. "He’s got the character and personality to play at that level, at the moment he just needs to be patient. I have high hopes for Ben and that’s because I’ve seen him train and I’ve got to know him as a young man. It will be interesting to see him under the care of Liverpool and how he develops.
"I first came across Ben when he was probably aged 12. He came on the radar at the Scottish Football Association as a player with massive potential. First, we kind of got to know him when he was playing with Celtic and their academy at the time. We knew about his potential back then but we didn’t really know Ben, we just knew about him on the pitch.
"A few years ago, pre-covid, we tracked him, we knew what Celtic thought of him as well which was after he had developed really well at the academy. We got to that stage where we wanted to get to know Ben a little bit better."
Despite still being a teenager, Doak's supreme technical ability and exceptional mentality saw him promoted to Scotland's under-16s squad just weeks before his 15th birthday in October 2019. The early climb to Stuart McLaren's side for their 2019 Victory Shield campaign in Ireland was approved in an attempt for those at the association's headquarters to scout their Dalry-born star in further detail. A year before he was supposed to make the move up the age groups.
Yet despite the promise while with McLaren's side as they won the 2019 Victory Shield, football's global pause because of the impacts of the coronavirus in early 2020 ultimately meant McLaughlin and his staff missed out on working with Doak until the reintroduction of the youth international camps in June 2021. When restrictions across the United Kingdom slowly began to ease.
McLaughlin, who played 75 times for Celtic during a 15-year professional career, recalls the first time he had the pleasure of working with Doak and the long-lasting impression the winger made on him and his fellow coaches.
"The first time I really got to know Ben was in June last year when he came to our first [post-covid] training camp - that’s the first time I had the pleasure of working with him," says the 48-year-old. "Bringing him in for that June camp was a real case of trying to get to know Ben, but the first thing I noticed when he came into the camp, and one thing that hadn’t changed, was his ambition.
"His high hopes and ambitions of wanting to play, that’s the first thing I noticed about him. I also noticed straight away that he’s a really good lad and I think he understood very quickly that if you’re going to have those ambitions then you’re going to have to train differently.
"You need to train with those ambitions because it’s not just going to come to you, and, to be fair to Ben, he gradually got better and better and better. Every time he turned up to training he was the first to arrive and last to leave.
"For us as staff, it was great getting to know him and understanding what he wanted to achieve in the game and then it was down to us to make sure we provided him with the challenges and demands he wanted. I think one of the big things we noticed was his level of consistency, through all the games he played until the injury he suffered in March."
After deciding that a move to Merseyside was the right advancement for his fledgling career, following in the footsteps of Andy Robertson, Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish and becoming the latest Scot to sign on the dotted lines at Anfield, Doak's stellar 2021/22 campaign prematurely came to an end after he suffered a groin injury in late April. Ruling him out of Scotland's under-17s European Championship campaign in Israel.
"He never played in the finals and I really felt for the boy because he had been a key figure for that age group, but it’s one of those ones at that point he just made his move to a huge club in Liverpool and he was carrying a slight knock," added McLaughlin.
"It doesn’t matter if you’re Ben, or anybody else in that team, your health comes first. As soon as we heard about the knock I spoke to Ben and he completely understood that we would not be taking any chances with his health because he has a full career ahead of him. He understood that and interestingly enough he joined the group on Facetime a few times while we had meetings and he still spoke to a few players even when we were in Israel. He’s a terrific boy."
Scotland would ultimately be knocked out in the group stages after failing to pick up a single point during any of their three matches, where it was clear the young Tartan Terriers were desperately missing Doak's explosive, low centre of gravity in attacking areas.
While not boasting a large frame for a typical 16-year-old, it's Doak's ability to handle himself against older, more physical defenders that has been key to his outstanding rise through the ranks of youth team football in recent years. Impressively, just two games into his under-18s career on Merseyside, he has already scored three goals. Such form has since fuelled rumours that he could soon make the step up to Barry Lewtas' under-21s side.
But despite the remarkable start at Liverpool, the best of Doak is yet to come, according to McLaughlin.
"Wherever he is on the pitch he’s different, he’s just different, " McLaughlin says. "He wants to take players on, he wants to be really, really positive and as long as he keeps that character and reminds himself of what his major strengths are, we’ll try to encourage him. He’s a different type of player to anybody who has come through recently, his athleticism alone is different.
"The thing that struck me about Ben when he joined the programme is how he came with an ambition that he wanted to achieve something big. He then went into our youth squads and went through the same process that Billy Gilmour’s gone through. Ben looked at what we were doing, what we were trying to do and how we wanted to play and he just loved it.
"He just wanted to learn more information, he wanted to face the demands that these top European teams were going to give him, so he had all the same characteristics as Billy.
"Having worked with Ben and tried him in slightly different areas and positions to get him on the ball, he took all that information on board. The great thing for me watching him was how he wants to take people out of the game by dribbling or running without the ball. And with the game becoming so tactically analysed now and teams now being so organised, if Ben keeps those characteristics in his game he’ll be able to break down any organisation - that’s why he’s different."
Despite scoring in back-to-back league games against Middlesbrough and Leeds United, Doak faces his biggest test in Liverpool colours on Saturday afternoon as Bridge-Wilkinson's side welcome old foes Manchester United to Kirkby. But having already played in a pulsating Old Firm clash, albeit a brief cameo, Doak's temperament, experience and skill will once again be key for the U18s, in what McLaughlin hopes will be a lengthy, illustrious career on Merseyside.
"Ben felt for him that was the next step of his young, young career," he says. "As I say, he’s got massive ambitions of where he wants to play and he felt this [moving to Liverpool] was his best pathway.
"I know certainly Celtic rated him very highly and the manager [Ange Postecoglou] gave him his debut. Celtic is a club with a history of playing young players so it must have been a big decision for Ben, does he take this big challenge at an early age? Obviously, he’s now done it.
"One thing I was sure about, whichever pathway he chose, Liverpool or Celtic, it wouldn't make any difference to him. He’ll still train every day to maximise his potential."
A version of this article was first published on August 28, 2022
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