Athletes are often wanderers in search of adventure, just like Alexander-Arnold

Have talent, will travel. Own boots, will fly. In sport, everyone has a suitcase ready, for it's the nature of the game.

- Rohit Brijnath

Today a football transfer. Tomorrow an NBA trade. So skill is packed, taken to a foreign landscape, and challenge accepted in a new regime.

Greatness is a long chase with many stations. To make history you often need to change geography. Andy Murray went to Spain at 15 to train. At six, Maria Sharapova moved to America and was away from her mother for two years. Sport, in every way, is underpinned by constant movement. A boy named Diego, born not far from Buenos Aires, became a holy figure in Naples. A lovely show-off from Funchal, Portugal was anointed in Manchester.

What are they chasing, these people?

Livelihood, of course. A better wage. Just like you and me. But also the athlete seeks his best self. He craves examination. He wishes to discover himself under the stress of an altered environment. He sometimes exits a secure job and its steadying winds to walk a new tightrope. This is challenge and it is what Trent Alexander-Arnold has accepted by reportedly leaving Liverpool for Real Madrid.

To stay in the same place can be comfort, to leave adventure. But partings — there is always some contract drama — are rarely pretty. Liverpool fans booed Alexander-Arnold when they played Arsenal and it was sad yet expected for fans see departure as betrayal. If you choose not to play for a team you are thus against it.