Lewis Koumas: Really feel-good story offers Liverpool one thing to smile about

The first participant to have a good time with Lewis Koumas in entrance of the travelling supporters in Linz was Liverpool‘s hat-trick hero in Bradley Barcola.

This time final season, Koumas was on mortgage at Birmingham within the Championship whereas Barcola was at Paris St-Germain, who went on to win the Champions League for the second season in a row.

Quite a sequence of occasions led to the pair beginning collectively for Liverpool of their 6-3 win over LASK.

And as Barcola left the Raiffeisen Arena with the match ball after an outstanding hat-trick, the Frenchman knew that he wasn’t the one participant who put the ball within the web thrice on Wednesday in Austria.

Koumas had his first two strikes dominated out for offside, however fortunately it was third time luck for the 21-year-old Wales global.

And so, simply three days after making his first Premier League begin towards Manchester City – with Alexander Isak, Cody Gakpo and Hugo Ekitike all injured – Koumas turned the youngest Liverpool participant to attain and help in a Champions League recreation.

Previously, the youngest to attain the feat had been Steven Gerrard in 2001.

When that was put to him, Koumas needed to know “Is that official?”.

“It’s not a foul stat, is it?” he mentioned. “And it is not a foul identify to be alongside. Wow. What a legend. I simply need extra of this.”

He is having fun with his run within the first workforce however staying level-headed about all of it, eager to level out: “This is my job.”

“I must get objectives and assists,” he mentioned. “I hadn’t had any earlier than Linz so it was actually essential to get them.”

In a Liverpool facet the place consideration tends to be directed in the direction of big-money names, Koumas offers an actual feel-good story.

He joined Liverpool aged 11 and scored on his first-team debut as an 18-year-old underneath Jurgen Klopp.

After spells on mortgage at Stoke, Birmingham and Hull, the place he helped the Tigers win promotion final season, Andoni Iraola determined within the first week of pre-season that Koumas was a part of his Liverpool plans.

He made his Premier League debut at Newcastle earlier than approaching towards Atletico Madrid within the Champions League. He was man of the match on his first begin of the season towards Tottenham within the Carabao Cup after an brisk efficiency which left Iraola describing his enjoying fashion as “contagious”.

That night time, Koumas went straight on a video name together with his household after the sport and it was the case once more in Austria after he scored his first objective of the season.

“It was in all probability the very best feeling in my profession, 100%. I’m simply actually grateful to have the chance once more,” mentioned Koumas.

“I might not have been a cheerful man [if I didn’t score], I might have been gutted. I simply stored going as a result of I knew the extra the sport was occurring, it was opening up.

“Going over to the followers on the finish meant completely all the things. They are the explanation we do that and that we wish this job. I want I might have gotten in there with them, however there was an enormous steel cage in the best way!”