Jurgen Klopp has never been against handing youngsters first-team opportunities at Liverpool.
With Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones, Caoimhin Kellher and Harvey Elliott all well-established first-team stars, Stefan Bajcetic would join the quartet in the Reds’ senior ranks last season before injury ended an impressive breakthrough campaign prematurely.
Ben Doak and Bobby Clark would both catch the eye when turned to, while Calvin Ramsay, Layton Stewart and Melkamu Frauendorf were also all granted first-team opportunities. There will be opportunities for at least the former pair in pre-season once again, with the likes of Conor Bradley, Tyler Morton and Kaide Gordon also looking to catch the eye after loan moves and injury respectively.
But senior opportunities didn’t used to be as forthcoming for young players at Anfield. For example, Liverpool would sign one highly-rated youngster from Real Madrid in the summer of 2007, yet he would depart four years later having never made a senior appearance for the club.
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Lauded as the ‘next Messi’ following his arrival on Merseyside, former Reds reserves star Gerardo Bruna would put his lack of opportunities down to managerial changes, having been on the cusp of a debut under the manager who signed him - Rafa Benitez.
“In Spain you have so many teams - under-18s, under-19s, the third team, the second team and then Real Madrid. I was only in the under-16s at the time, it’s a really big step,” he told the Lancashire Evening Telegraph when recalling his Reds career in 2015.
“So when Liverpool called me and offered me the chance to train with the reserves and the first team sometimes, I felt like it was a lot closer. I thought for a 16-year-old kid it was a good move. Benitez was one of the main reasons too…
“After I played for Argentina [Under-20s in the Toulon tournament in 2009] I came back to Liverpool and did pre-season, that was when Benitez gave me a chance in the first-team squad. But I had a knee injury, I had the operation in Barcelona and when I came back I struggled a little bit with injuries and wasn’t involved that much.
“Benitez left and everything changed. Roy Hodgson came, I still trained a few times with the first team, but then came Kenny Dalglish and he told me I was not going to play in his first team, so obviously I needed to do something.”
Bruna has led a varied career in the lower depths of the footballing ladder since leaving Liverpool behind in 2011. He initially joined Championship side Blackpool following their Premier League relegation, but made just four appearances before returning to Spain for a season with Segunda Division B side Huesca. From there, he'd return to England with short-term contracts with Tranmere Rovers and Whitehawk, before signing for Accrington Stanley in January 2015.
A year later he was released and signed for Ottawa Fury, before joining League of Ireland side Derry City in February 2019. A switch to Shelbourne followed two years later, though an ACL injury ensured he never played for the club, before he signed for NIFL Premiership side Dungannon Swifts last September.
Which is where our story resumes. While Bruna has understandably never lived up to that ‘next Messi’ tag, he’ll never be forgotten at Stangmore Park after a memorable solitary season with the Swifts.
Bruna would go viral back in November when the former Liverpool and Real Madrid midfielder scored a spectacular goal against Glentoran from inside his own half. It would prove to be his only goal of the season as he made 25 appearances for the club.
Yet his finest hour came earlier this month as he helped Dungannon Swifts avoid relegation, having jetted in at the last-minute to answer an SOS call from the club.
The 32-year-old had returned to Spain, having thought his time with the club was over after setting up the winner in a 2-1 victory over Newry City in the final game of the regular season on April 29.
With a two-legged relegation play-off against Annargh United still to come, the two games were delayed by four weeks due to a licensing issue, leaving both sides badly weakened by injuries, absentees and player departures.
After Dungannon lost the first leg 2-1 on May 30, manager Dean Shiels called in Bruna in hope he could help salvage their season and extend their 20-year stay in the Premiership ahead of the second leg on June 1.
The former Spain and Argentina youth international, who didn’t even have his boots with him as he jetted away from a planned week in France for the Monaco GP, would play a starring role in the Swifts’ 2-0 victory to secure safety before flying out to Monte Carlo, having spent less than 48 hours back in Northern Ireland.
“The manager [Dean Shiels] called me on Wednesday morning and asked could I come over for the game the next night,” Bruna explained. “By coincidence, I was in England — I was supposed to be in France — so I said, ‘yeah, okay’. Then I flew back to France this morning straight after the game.
“I was in Monaco watching the Grand Prix and supposed to be in France all week. But I flew back to the UK on Tuesday night because my wife, who was still in Liverpool, said to come back and we’d fly back out to France together.
“I went straight to sleep and then I woke up the next morning and Dean had texted, and so I said to my wife, ‘I think I have to go again’. It was just a coincidence I was in the UK because I was supposed to be in France. It was only on Monday night that I decided to go back.
“I don’t think Dean even knew I was back in the UK as my plan was to stay in France. But we spoke on the phone and I said, ‘yeah, no problem’. The only thing was that I had to fly straight back after the game. My flight back to France was at 7am this morning.
“I didn’t even have my boots — they were in my old house in Derry. Dean said, ‘okay, just fly to Belfast’, and he got me a car to drive to Derry to get my boots. I went for dinner and went to sleep. Then I woke up the next day and got ready for the game.”
While at a Liverpool or Real Madrid, they would have been countless members of staff responsible for organising Bruna’s travel plans, it is obviously a little different in the NIFL Irish Premiership.
As a result, the semi-professional club’s manager Shiels had to turn into a travel coordinator, organising flights, hotels and airport pick-ups, in order to get his star player back to Stangmore Park in time for the game, while also fitting in a detour to pick up his boots en route.
Delighted to see such hard work pay off, Shiels paid tribute to Bruna when detailing the lengths the pair went to get the 32-year-old out on the pitch.
"Bruna has flown back especially for tonight," Shiels said after the game. "He only got in this morning. I booked the flights, the hotel and picked him up myself as I knew the importance of having him in the team.
"He has shown so much desire and has had to deal with personal issues off the field which people aren't aware of. He's been a pleasure to work with and his appetite to come and help this club stay in the league was so refreshing.
"His quality was really needed tonight. He was in France and Spain over the last few weeks. His quality is unquestionable, obviously given his fitness levels it was tough on him.
“I rang him after the game on Tuesday, I didn't think he'd be available but we had a big desire to bring him because we knew how much he would help us.”
Shiels continued: “Mentally it has been tough... just the whole play-off situation, the wait for the games and not knowing who we were playing and it seems like it has been a never-ending season.
"Mentally that was tough on the staff and the players, both teams. The league came to a decision and we got two games in two days, which was crazy, but both teams had to really throw everything at it.
"From our own point of view, having 12 players out tonight was just crazy and trying to get a team that could turnaround a deficit."
Bruna is now a free agent after officially leaving the Swifts. But the former Liverpool was delighted to help them secure safety, having seen them hand him a playing return after his lengthy lay-off with an ACL injury.
“I am so happy for Dungannon,” he said. “It has been a really tough time for me. I had left Derry City and went to Shelbourne and tore my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), so I was out for ages.
“It has taken me a while to come back, and I am so grateful to Dungannon for giving me the chance to play football again.”
