Lucas Leiva: The Fall Guy Who Won't Stay Down

Time is not kind to footballers.  Save for a few special exceptions, their moments in the spotlight are few and far between.  Years of dedication to a sport can be forgotten with one bad performance.  Fans are always too quick to forget a player at his best and yet the lows are always held onto, used as a point of reference from which they must always be reminded.  No-one ever goes through life without making a mistake.  The measure of a man is not how - or even whether - he gets to the top.  It's what he does when everything goes wrong.

Lucas Leiva's journey from scapegoat to cult hero is one of perserverance.  Arriving in England at the tender age of twenty years old and competing for a place in a team that at the time contained Steven Gerrard, Xabi Alonso and Javier Mascherano.  He started life as something of an understudy to Momo Sissoko and his task was to displace a man whose name was sung aloud as part of a chant proclaiming to have the best midfield in the world.  Simply by doing that and proving to the manager as well as those around the club, wasn't good enough however.  The fans would not be won over easily.

Expectations didn't help.  This was a player who had been the youngest ever recipiant of the Brazilian golden ball, a competition that had in the two years prior had been won by Carlos Tevez & Robinho.  He was dynamic and athletic, drawing comparisons from Steven Gerrard and Claude Makelele - which was impressive given that he'd barely played just over a season in Brazil.  Even with that award, he was still incredibly raw and was by no means the finished article.  Rafa Benitez saw then what pretty much everybody sees now.

At a time in his career when he needed nurturing, Lucas was being thrown in at the deep end and for one reason or another, nothing seemed to go his way.  This was illustrated by the fact that even after providing what would be the winning penalty in a Merseyside derby all anybody could talk about was that Benitez would have the nerve to take off Gerrard.  That was to be his only highlight in a season which saw him go from enouraging prospect to outright lilability.  Right from the word go however, he had helped establish what would continue to be a running theme.  Whether people liked him or not, he never hid away from doing what is needed to be done.

After enjoying a less that smooth transition into the English top flight, the following season only confirmed his status as the one to blame.  As Liverpool went toe to toe with Manchester United for the league title, Lucas was forced into conceeding a late penalty away to Wigan - a challenge he wouldn't have had to make were it not for the fact that a few defenders had been caught out of position.  Two points dropped in what would ultimatley turn out to be a failed bid for the championship, coupled with getting sent off at Goodison Park meant that public opinion of the midfielder was at an all time low.  The shoots of recovery would be seen in the form of a performance at Old Trafford that saw the reds win 4-1.  He would not look back.

Of all the multiple criticisms leveled at Lucas, one that was irrefutable was that in his early years he was far too lightweight for the Premiership.  Starting from the 2009/10 season however and as he has grown up so to has his strength seen a massive improvement.  With that improvement came an increase in his form, just as a lot of those around him suffered a loss in theirs.  A dissapointing seventh place finish in the league saw the man that brought Lucas to Anfield depart.  His replacement would find it even harder at Liverpool than Lucas did to begin with, but the man himself was starting to make everyone pay attention.

With Mascherano and Alonso now having moved on and Steven Gerrard unable to play through injury, Lucas had by default become the senior midfielder.  Covering for the disasterous Christian Poulsen as well as trying to nurse Jay Spearing into Premier League football, things weren't going particularly well for either he or the team until Kenny Dalglish came in to replace Roy Hodgson.  The months that followed saw Liverpool play some engaging football as well as Lucas earning the plaudits he so richely deserved.  The future looked bright.

It was two performances in the space of forty eight hours that encapsualtes everything you need to know about Lucas Leiva.  He personally shadowed David Silva at Anfield and made the Man City midfielder completely inneffective.  This earned him a glowing review from Sky Sports' Gary Neville and even the media were forced to eat a slice of humble pie.  Two days later and he was doing the same in a league cup tie at Stamford Bridge - this time to the entire Chelsea midfield - when it happened.  He and Juan Mata went for the ball, Lucas pulled up and instantly you knew something was terribly wrong.  It would be the last time he would appear in a Liverpool shirt that season.  Many people believe that the challenge for Champions League football ended with that injury.

And so to the present day.  Two years of not being able to play at the level of those around him followed by a couple in which he has been arguably Liverpool's best player.  He returned to the team in a preseason friendly against Toronto and was welcomed like a returning hero.  The scapegoat had finally won most of his doubters over.  Joe Allen came in from Swansea and gives Lucas the kind of player that he was used to playing alongside in Xabi Alonso.  A stuttering start to the season wasn't ideal but it was no time to panic.  Getting injured minutes into the game against City - ironically enough the last team he managed a full ninety against - was a huge blow.  But it also showcases the club on a wider scale as it stands right now.

The encounter with Man City last season gave supporters everywhere a great deal of optimism and that was later crushed by his injury in the following game against Chelsea.  That we were able to overcome the setback there is that positivity in spite of it.  He has become an important part of the squad - as evidenced with Suarez's message after his goal on Thursday - but the club is much better placed now to deal with that loss than it was.  Last year that role was to be covered by the likes of Charlie Adam and Jay Spearing, this we have Joe Allen or Nuri Sahin to take his place in the midfield.  In the meantime Lucas will get a chance to give that knee some more rest.  The hope is that he will come back stronger than ever.  If anyone deserves a bit of luck and for something to go his way, it's Lucas Leiva.