You’re the first Georgian player to represent Liverpool. How proud are you of that fact and what will it mean to all the people back home?<\/p>\n
Of course I am very proud to be the first Georgian player for Liverpool, and I know how much this means for my family and [for] Georgian people as well.<\/p>\n
What was the reaction like back in Georgia when this deal was announced last summer? <\/p>\n
I will never forget this day \u2013 when I signed a contract with Liverpool. It was amazing in Georgia. So many messages I received and everyone was so happy and excited. <\/p>\n
Can you tell us about your journey towards becoming a Liverpool player? Coming up through Georgian football and then moving to Spain as a 20-year-old\u2026<\/p>\n
My journey started in Georgia, on the small pitches there. I played in [the] first league [for] three years and step by step I became part of the national team. At 20, I had the opportunity to go to Spain, and there I started my totally new life with [a] new language, new culture, new people. The first year was really tough for me.<\/p>\n
I read when you went to Valencia you couldn’t speak any Spanish and then four years later you’re a really important player there. How much did you develop there?<\/p>\n
Valencia played a really huge role in my life, because I didn’t speak Spanish, I didn’t speak English and, as I told you, my first year there was really tough. But then I quickly understood that if I wanted to play, I had to learn, I had to adapt and I had to work on myself every single day. Now I’m here in the biggest club in Premier League history. <\/p>\n
Your goalkeeping coach at Valencia, Jose Manuel Ochotorena, actually worked at Liverpool in the past. Did he tell you anything about what to expect here?<\/p>\n
Yes, of course. Ochotorena is an amazing person and an amazing coach. Actually, he was one of the first who I talked [to] about Liverpool’s offer and he directly told me, ‘Just sign the contract’, because he knows how big [a] club Liverpool is, and I just want to tell him thank you. Thank you for everything and see you soon, Ochotorena. <\/p>\n
I’m sure you want to keep on developing as a goalkeeper and that’s why you’ve joined Liverpool, to take the next step in your career\u2026<\/p>\n
Of course. When I was a child I always watched some videos on YouTube of goalkeepers, and I remember some Liverpool goalkeepers as well. I remember Jerzy Dudek and then Pepe Reina and now Alisson Becker. Liverpool has a big goalkeeper legacy and I want to try to write my own chapter in this goalkeepers’ legacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You’re the first Georgian player to represent Liverpool. How proud are you of that fact and what will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[607,608,59,596,603,598,609,611,610,134,602,601,597,606,599,604,101,600,56,54,55,605],"class_list":["post-959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-alisson","tag-firmino","tag-gb","tag-homepage","tag-klopp","tag-lfc","tag-lfc-news","tag-lfctv","tag-lfctv-go","tag-liverpool-fc","tag-liverpool-fc-match","tag-liverpool-fc-news","tag-liverpool-football-club","tag-mane","tag-reds","tag-salah","tag-sports","tag-the-reds","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-van-dijk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}