My Current Favourite Football Player – Roberto Firmino

Roberto Firmino Barbosa de Oliveira (born 2 October 1991) is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays for Premier League club Liverpool and the Brazil national team as a forward, attacking midfielder or winger.

Early in his career, Firmino joined Figueirense's youth setup in 2008, aged 17, after starting out at CRB. He was discovered by a dentist, Marcellus Portella. With the latter, he was mainly used as a defensive midfielder.

Firmino made his professional debut on 24 October 2009, coming on as a half-time substitute for Toninho in a 1–2 home loss against Ponte Preta, for the Série B championship. In January 2010 he was promoted to the main squad.

Firmino scored his first professional goal on 8 May 2010, netting the winner in an away success against São Caetano. He contributed with eight goals in 36 appearances during the season, as Figueira returned to Série A after a two-year absence. After starting his career with Figueirense in 2009, he spent four-and-a-half seasons at Hoffenheim. His 16 goals in 33 games for the 2013–14 Bundesliga season earned him the award for the league's Breakthrough Player. In July 2015, he signed for Premier League club Liverpool. His creativity, goalscoring and work rate have earned him plaudits at Liverpool, with manager Jürgen Klopp referring to Firmino as the "engine" that propels the club's counter-attacking system. In the 2018–2019 season he won the UEFA Champions League, and the following season won the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup scoring the winner in the final.

Firmino made his international debut for Brazil in November 2014. He represented the nation at the 2015 Copa América, the 2018 FIFA World Cup and was part of the Brazil team that won the 2019 Copa América.

Described by Jürgen Klopp as the ‘engine’ of his team, Roberto Firmino is a Champions League-winning striker who does so much more than just score goals.

Blessed with prodigious physical gifts that complement his exceptional footballing talents, the Brazil international leads Liverpool’s line with a fearsome and influential combination of industry and ingenuity.

Alongside Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah, Firmino forms part of one of Europe’s premier attacking trios and scored 43 goals over the course of the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons to help the Reds reach back-to-back Champions League finals.

The Brazilian arrived at Anfield for £30 million in 2015, and most Liverpool fans would struggle to admit they had seen many of his performances or heard much hysteria. And the 28-year-old didn't set the Bundlesliga on fire – far from it. He joined the Reds on the back of seven league goals in 33 games in the German topflight.

The season before he had been named as the division's Breakthrough Player of the Season, notching 22 goals and giving himself a decent highlight reel for fans to watch on YouTube. But the job he was coming in to do wasn't something that could be showcased in a three-minute clip.

At Hoffenheim he was primarily deployed as an attacking midfielder, and sometimes shunted out wide, and that continued at Liverpool as manager Brendan Rodgers struggled to find his best position and continued to experiment with him.

He hadn't found the net under his leadership – Christian Benteke had come in during the same transfer window for around the same price and was often picked to spearhead attacks. It wasn't until Rodgers was sacked and replaced by Jurgen Klopp that Firmino started to come alive.

In that first season, he went on to grab 11 goals and 11 assists after the German decided to make him his main central forward. But even with the backing of Klopp and a positional switch, he has never been a 20-plus-goal-a-season striker.

As he has shown this season, Firmino is the complete package as Klopp's false nine – dropping deep, holding up play, creating chances and finishing them off too. We often judge strikers on how many goals they score, which means many fans would be ridiculed for putting him in the same league as Roberto Lewandowski, Sergio Aguero or Harry Kane. His contribution in UEFA Champions League 18/19 helps Liverpool to win their first title as European champion since the year of 2005.

He involved almost every goal Liverpool's team create and he is undeniably the best false 9 ever since Messi and one of the most creative player ever. He is criminally underrated.