A PASSIONATE MARTIN SKRTEL

“Always passionate, playing or not.”

This was one of the things fans had to say about good old Martin upon the confirmation of his move from Liverpool to Fenerbahce on July 14, 2016. Martin Skrtel is a football center back born in Handlova, Slovakia and currently plies his trade in the Turkish league with Fenerbahce.

Trencin, a football club based in his native Slovakia was where made his professional debut in 2001. He played 44 games for them before Russian giants, Zenit St. Petersburg came calling for his services in 2004. He made 113 appearances and also won the Russian Premier League in 2007 and a year later joined Liverpool FC for a reported fee of £6.5 million.

He made 320 appearances for the Merseyside club between January 2008 and July 2016 between which he helped the reds win the League Cup in the 2011/2012 season and also won Liverpool Player of the Year award.

On the international scene, big old Martin happen to be a much bigger deal for the Slovak national team as he is currently the captain and occupies the third position on their all time appearance list with his record of 89 behind those of retired Miroslav karhan and current team mate Marek Hamsik.

In all, Martin skrtel was something of a divisive figure most notably when his stay at Anfield is reviewed through holistic lenses. As Henry Jackson pointed out, he was a good player but was never good enough for Liverpool.

Just like the opening quote announced of his ‘passion,’ an honest observer of soccer will agree that in the long course of the football empire, passion, though been a currency cherished and valued by fans, do not make a player great, the highest of status players dream to achieve at their respective clubs. For Skrtel, he came close but maybe he wasn’t good enough.