When he came home from school his parents were talking things over and they asked: “Well, what do you want to do?” Mike and Linda’s boy was 15 but mature enough, they knew, to make his own decisions, even life-changing ones.
The dilemma was that one of the world’s biggest football clubs wanted him, a club with one of the all-time great managers, one that had just competed in two of the past three Champions League finals. He could join them, or go to the fourth-best team in France. What did Divock Origi want? He announced he would be telling Manchester United: “No thanks.” He was joining Lille.
Origi is bright. But he’s not so clever that he could read his own future and know one day he’d find his “perfect” home was Liverpool. He made that decision, in May 2010, guided by good instincts and the right priorities. Lille were a rising force, with a burgeoning record for developing players and giving them early opportunities. His ultimate goal — of being a star in England — could wait.
“My dream is to be a top player one day and I believe I am in the perfect place to grow
“It was just the decision of my heart,” recalls Origi, born and raised in Belgium but whose first language is English. “At that moment I realised it was about the academy, the French League and I saw Eden Hazard come through at Lille and these other players: Gervinho, Joe Cole were in the first team. I thought I’d have the chance to go through there.”
He laughs. No, he didn’t have Koppite feelings about United. “I was 15 years old and didn’t have anything against them or any team. My dream was to play in the Premier League one day but my heart said I had to do it through Lille.
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“At that moment I came back from school and my father and mother sat down and I saw them discussing and I knew they had a way that they wanted things to go. But they told me I could choose. For parents to say this to a child at 15 . . . I had a day of thinking and for me the most logical option was Lille. It was a good choice.”
The story of shunning United will do no harm to Origi’s relationship with Liverpool fans. It’s just starting to blossom but was slow to take root. When an injury crisis left him as the only fit striker at the start of Jurgen Klopp’s reign, plenty doubted his readiness. “So raw he could give you salmonella” was one supporter’s memorable Twitter verdict of Origi.
Yet Klopp was always convinced and the 20-year-old’s progress has been striking. Leading the line, his running stretching Vincent Kompany and Nicolas Otamendi to create space that Adam Lallana, James Milner and Roberto Firmino revelled in, he was a key element in Wendesday’s 3-0 win over Manchester City.
He also led, from the front, Klopp’s counter-pressing game, fully justifying his manager’s call to start him ahead of his £32m compatriot, Christian Benteke. Fans are now starting to see what their manager sees and Origi is feeling the love. He posted a picture of himself leaning into the away end to be smothered by embraces after scoring in Liverpool’s 6-0 win at Aston Villa on February 14, captioning it “Must be Valentines Day.”
He’d seal the affection if he scores against the club he rejected on Thursday, but before Liverpool meet United in the first leg of a Europa League tie, come Crystal Palace in the Premier League. Wednesday revived faint hopes of scrambling into the European places again.
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Asked for his objectives for the rest of 2015-16, Origi says: “Personally, it is to maximise my game time. Any time I get, give everything and of course score goals. As a team, it’s to go as high as possible. We have to fight in every one like against City. If we fight like this I think we can move forward.”
His debut was in September’s 3-1 defeat at Old Trafford. “I am very motivated and excited for [Thursday’s] game and this tournament [Europa League] as I believe we can go far,” he says. “We are ready for the fight.”
He speaks well and humbly shakes reporters’ hands when the interview is over. Origi’s dad was a Kenyan international, and one of Africa’s early European stars.
He was known in Belgium, where he played for several clubs including Genk, as “Normal Mike” because of his happy, unassuming, down-to-earth demeanour — something Divock shares.
In 2013-14, he started on Lille’s bench squad and finished up scoring in the Maracana for Belgium, at 19, at the World Cup, before joining Liverpool. But the unreal trajectory of that season didn’t change him.
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“Things went so quickly and I had some ups and downs but I have learnt a lot and it is down to my family and my father,” he says. “[Keeping your feet on the ground] is not easy but your entourage helps you a lot and that’s what they did and I’m lucky I have good friends also. I don’t have many friends but I have good friends and that helps me.
“I try to be as normal as I can. A lot of people compare me to my father. I am the younger version, not exactly the same, but with a lot of things I can see myself in my father.
“He taught me you have to respect yourself and give everything on the pitch but off the pitch keep your values. I’m a religious person so that helps.”
He stays normal, he says, by hanging at home with friends and visiting family. A cousin plays in Norway and three uncles were pros: football always dominates the conversation.
There are “no regrets” about shunning United, or the terms of his transfer to Liverpool that meant he had to spend a difficult 2014-15 season on loan back at Lille.
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In England, “at the beginning it was a time for me to adapt and now things are going better. I’ve worked hard, learnt a lot and am starting to see the profits,” he says.
“I’ve seen Liverpool is a very ambitious club, a warm club, more like a family. It is a club that likes to fight for what they want and believe in. They bring young players through. My dream is to be a top player one day. I think I am in the perfect place to grow.”
