Newcastle striker Alexander Isak is being eyed up by Liverpool in a British record move this summer – a far cry from his humble roots as the son of Eritrean refugees.
Isak grew up in the suburb of Bagartorp, just outside the Swedish capital of Stockholm, after his parents fled Eritrea at the end of the 1980s. His father, Teame, a teacher, had decided to go in search of a brighter future for his family.
They were welcomed in Sweden and Isak began his journey there which would take him to the heights of the Premier League, and perhaps even Anfield next.
As a child, he began to play football at a place simply dubbed ‘the pitch’, which started as gravel before later being replaced by artificial turf. He is said to have spent much of his free time there when not ensuring he was also a model student at school.
The gangling Isak, unsurprisingly, also stood out in sport class.
‘I have never had a student who has jumped 1.75m in high jump without ever training,’ his PE teacher, Christer Corpi, told Swedish publication Expressen in 2021.
Another of his teachers, Ann-Cathrin Lif, recalls Isak was well-behaved and polite.
‘All the guys at “the pitch” looked up to him, especially the younger ones,’ she said. ‘I noticed how respectful he was towards the younger players.
‘A nice person, simply put. He was a negotiator if there was a conflict. He could get angry and irritated like everyone else but he had a calm aura.’
Years later, in 2018, Isak returned to Eritrea to get a better understanding of his roots. While there, he visited a football school and watched youngsters take part in the sport which thrust him in front of the eyes of the world, initially as a teenager.
His ability saw him sign for AIK, the nearest top-flight side in Sweden, aged six.
Fast forward to January 2017, when Isak became his country’s youngest goalscorer at the age of 17 in just his second senior international appearance. It was a scuffed effort against Slovakia, and it shattered the previous record which stood for 105 years.
The year before, Isak had also become AIK’s youngest goalscorer in a competitive match. He then became the club’s youngest scorer in the Swedish top tier after putting rivals Djurgarden to the sword with two goals. It was also his 17th birthday.
However, his career has been far from a straight line. Just a few weeks after opening his account for Sweden, Isak joined Borussia Dortmund in Germany, turning down interest from Real Madrid. He soon became the victim of a power struggle.
Dortmund’s then manager, Thomas Tuchel, now England’s head coach, had not been involved in the decision to sign Isak and as a result, the striker’s opportunities only came sparingly. Indeed, Isak played just four minutes in total under Tuchel.
Tuchel departed that summer but Isak was still unable to find his feet, and he eventually completed a switch to Spanish side Real Sociedad in the summer of 2019. First came the confidence, then the goals. Isak has never looked back since.
Then, 105 games and 33 goals later, he found himself jetting out to England to sign for Newcastle in a club record deal worth around £63million in August 2022.
He attributes his mental fortitude to his early career setbacks, which first came when he was given a dressing down by his coaches as a young boy at AIK. ‘Of course I have had tough periods before,’ Isak told Aftonbladet. ‘I was dropped to the bench.
‘They thought I didn’t work hard enough and they were right. I didn’t do what was needed to be in the team. I realised that I had to work really hard, just like the others.
‘It was then that I realised that this was serious, you have to try really hard [to succeed]. So that’s when I sorted myself out.’
Striking a similarly grounded note, Isak once said: ‘You always have to think about how good you are when you are at your best. Most players have a feeling for how good you can be even when things are not happening for them on the pitch.
‘You have to visualise yourself at the top of your game.’
Should Isak, now 25, secure a dream move to Liverpool over the coming days and weeks, there are no suggestions he will remain anything but humble.
This flies in the face of reports he is seeking £300,000 per week to stay at Newcastle, a figure the Reds could table to lure him across to Merseyside.
Mail Sport exclusively revealed on Thursday that Isak has told Newcastle’s hierarchy he wants to leave this summer, with Liverpool readying a British record offer. It is understood that several of his team-mates also expect him to go.
Newcastle are likely to demand a staggering £150million price tag.
