Fabinho draws curtains on illustrious career at Liverpool FC

 Brazilian footballer Fabinho has left Premier League side Liverpool FC to join Saudi Arabian football club Al Ittihad on a three-year deal.

The Brazilian midfielder finalised the switch to the Saudi Arabian club, bringing an end to a hugely memorable spell at Anfield that included 219 appearances in all competitions and five major honours.

Signed from AS Monaco in May 2018, Fabinho broke into Jurgen Klopp’s starting line-up several months into his first season and became a fulcrum in the Reds’ sustained success in the years that followed.

A maiden campaign during which he was increasingly integral saw Liverpool lose just once in the Premier League and total 97 points but narrowly miss out on the top spot.

The season nevertheless concluded in unforgettable fashion with Champions League glory, the No.3 – who would come to be known as the team’s ‘lighthouse’ – playing the whole of the 2-0 final victory over Tottenham Hotspur in Madrid.

A UEFA Super Cup winner’s medal was added at the outset of 2019-20 and Fabinho featured 28 times – chipping in with two goals and three assists – as Klopp’s men surged to redemptive Premier League title glory with 99 points in 2019-20.

Both of those strikes were thunderous, the first to kickstart a crucial Anfield win against Manchester City and the second a brilliant drive from distance past Crystal Palace on the eve of the championship being clinched.

Capable of dropping back into central defence when circumstances required it, the Brazil international helped Liverpool turn around a challenging 2020-21 season to secure a third-placed finish.

He thrived during the next campaign, too, as the Reds launched a thrilling bid for a quadruple, providing a personal-best eight goals from midfield in 48 outings.

There was also the delightful ‘Panenka’ penalty Fabinho converted in the Carabao Cup final shootout win over Chelsea, with Klopp’s side going on to lift the FA Cup and be runners-up in the Premier League and Champions League.

The midfielder passed 200 appearances for Liverpool during the most recent season and now bids farewell to the club with the move to Al-Ittihad.