The Anfield Wrap’s Steve Graves writes a love letter to Fabio Aurelio, Liverpool’s first Brazilian…

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

It’s the first day of May and a pallid Liverpool side, preoccupied by an impending cup final and suffering the effects of a dreadful slump in form, gift Fulham an early goal at Anfield.
The game turns into the kind you’d barely notice if you passed it in a public park. For some reason I remember it being really cold, even though logic and a glimpse at the calendar tell me it can’t have been.

It was one of them.

Ordinarily I’d have long since forgotten the whole depressing experience, were it not for the night’s status as a minor landmark in the progressive dismantling of the last Liverpool team I truly believed, rather than hoped, was a great one.

Liverpool’s lineup that day was a half-and-half mix of regulars, Andy Carroll and lads we’d mostly forgotten about.

There was Maxi, looking clever. There was Dirk Kuyt, also clever, and working hard. And there, moving a bit awkwardly but swinging in inviting crosses for Carroll to stand and admire, was Fabio Aurelio.

Oh, Fabio. Let me count the ways. Continue reading →