Liverpool hat-trick hero from LASK Linz died at 22 and had shirt number retired
Long before everyone was welcomed there by Hollywood superstars, Wrexham was a favourite destination for Rafael Benitez.
In each of the first four summers of the Spaniard's Liverpool reign the Reds would make the short journey to north east Wales to take on the Football League side in their opening pre-season friendly, with the games quickly becoming occasions that the locals would look forward to.
In 2004, in what was Benitez's first ever Liverpool game in charge, a brace from Anthony Le Tallec gave the Reds a 2-1 win at a time when no-one could have expected what would come next. Fast forward 12 months, and Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher were bringing the Champions League trophy onto the Racecourse Ground pitch before a 4-3 win which featured braces from Fernando Morientes and Milan Baros.
The latter two years of the fixture would see a mixture of squad and youth players feature due to international tournaments and other commitments, but on both occasions they provided Reds fans with a glimpse of the tall teenage forward Besian Idrizaj, an Austrian youth international of Kosovan descent who started 2006's 2-0 win upfront with Craig Bellamy. Then in 2007 he scored a hat-trick in the first 26 minutes of a 3-2 win. Tongues were wagging.
Idrizaj hadn't featured in a competitive first-team game since joining from LASK Linz in 2005 after a successful trial, signing a two-year deal with the option of a third, but he was desperate to get the opportunity.
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Rafael Benitez used to enjoy Liverpool's trips to Wrexham (Press Association)He had initially been spotted by several scouts across the continent at the European Under-17 Championships in France in 2004, a tournament won by the hosts thanks to star turns from Karim Benzema, Samir Nasri and Hatem Ben Arfa. Idrizaj had joined LASK from the smaller Admira Linz club a year previously, and 2004-05 was to prove to be his big break as he featured 28 times for the first-team. His name was known across Europe, and Liverpool invited him for a trial.
"I have always been a Liverpool fan and it is a dream come true to play for them," he said after arriving during those heady post-Istanbul weeks for the club. "If you get a chance to go to Liverpool on trial then you have to take it. You cannot ignore a trial with the reigning Champions League winners. I would even have swum across the channel just to take part."
Idrizaj started Liverpool's games at Wrexham in 2006 and 2007 (Colorsport/REX/Shutterstock)
Craig Bellamy partnered him in attack at the Racecourse Ground (Getty Images)Having not yet turned 18 the Austrian was always going to be a signing for the youth ranks rather than the first team, and after initially suffering frustrating injuries in his first campaign the 6ft 2ins forward likened to Zlatan Ibrahimovic - his hero both in terms of playing style and personality - settled into Hughie McAuley and Gary Ablett's second-string side for 2006-07.
It was a squad dripping with talent, with the highly-rated defender Jack Hobbs having signed from Lincoln City, defender Godwin Antwi, who lived with Idrizaj, attracted from Zaragoza, exciting winger Paul Anderson brought in from Hull and Dutch forward Jordy Brouwer arriving from Ajax, all supplemented by emerging local talents Lee Peltier, Stephen Darby, Jay Spearing, Sean Highdale and Craig Lindfield, with those young enough going on to form the backbone of the team that would win the FA Youth Cup that season.
By then Idrizaj was spending the final weeks of the campaign on loan at Luton, playing seven times for a Hatters side bottom of the Championship and scoring once in a 3-1 win at Southend which also relegated the hosts. Calm and composed at Roots Hall, he raced onto a ball over the top and coolly finished with his left foot. It was to be his only English league goal.
He always had north east Wales though, and that day in Wrexham on July 7, 2007 when his three goals arrived within 23 minutes of each other, all of which were set up by Jermaine Pennant, whose cross for the third was met with a powerful Zlatan-esque header by the young forward.
"I still remember the day," Besian's brother Qerim told an interview with The Athletic in 2020. "At the time, the internet was not like now and if we called Besian we had to have a prepaid card. He called home afterwards and he said, ‘Did you check the Liverpool website?’ I said, ‘No. Why? What happened?’ He said, ‘Just check it’. He was really proud.
“And it was something to be proud of. So I typed in Liverpool FC and went onto the homepage, and the first story was Besian Idrizaj scores a 23-minute hat-trick. I said, ‘Wow, man. This is amazing? How did you do that?’”
If Idrizaj hoped that this would be his breakthrough into the first-team though, he was to be mistaken. Liverpool had exercised their right to extend his contract by another year, but off the back of losing the Champions League final this was the summer they signed Fernando Torres, with Andriy Voronin also arriving on a free transfer and Peter Crouch still around to take up the role of tall striker.
Idrizaj had a spell on loan at Luton, where he scored his only English league goal (PA)
The Austrian also played seven games on loan at Crystal Palace (Jed Leicester/REX/Shutterstock)Benitez didn't think the Austrian was ready for a place in his squad, ominously saying after the Wrexham hat-trick that "he scored three but knows it should have been four, he needs to mature in some aspects of his game." He wouldn't feature in another friendly that summer and eventually left for Crystal Palace on loan, a move which didn't work out due to managerial upheaval in south London, with Peter Taylor sacked and Neil Warnock happy to let the youngster go back to Liverpool.
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Idrizaj, now 21 and an under-21 international, decided to spend the latter part of the 2007-08 season back in Austria with Wacker Innsbruck, hoping to catch the eye of the senior team ahead of the European Championships they were joint hosting with Poland.
However, it was here that things began to take a worrying turn, with Idrizaj collapsing on the pitch, clutching his chest and needing urgent medical help shortly after coming on in a game against Sturm Graz. He would dismiss it as a virus, perhaps seeking to play down the seriousness of the incident as he was a footballer who would be out of contract that summer and was desperate to play. Wacker didn't offer him a permanent deal.
Now without a club, he was forced into an extended break which lasted months before he eventually linked up with LASK Linz again, purely to train. However, in one of his first sessions he was to fall ill once more. Just as with the Innsbruck incident he was thoroughly checked over by doctors, and although nothing was found that was imminently life-threatening, Idrizaj knew he had to turn his back on football for a period.
Idrizaj joined Swansea City in 2009 (REX/Shutterstock)Agonising months would follow, but by the summer of 2009 he felt ready to go again, targeting a move back to the Championship as his destination. He reportedly interested Yeovil and Nottingham Forest, before impressing on trial on Swansea and earning a two-year deal, taking a liking to Wales again just as he had that afternoon at Wrexham.
"We are delighted that he has signed," said manager Paulo Sousa. "He is a player I have been aware of from his time at Liverpool and with the Austrian international set-up. Besian has good characteristics and can play anywhere along the front line - I believe that he will be a great asset. He is a young player with good talent but has not played for a long time in competitive football, and it will take him time to adjust to the intensity of our league."
There was a warning in there, but Idrizaj came off the bench three times in his opening few weeks as a Swansea player, including once in a remarkable League Cup defeat to Scunthorpe which saw them finish with eight men. His only start came in a 1-0 win over Plymouth in the December, when he played alongside Wales internationals Ashley Williams and Joe Allen.
Injuries and competition for places made it tough for Idrizaj though, and there was still the nagging concern about his health issues. He would wear a heart rate monitor during training and, despite doctors being happy for him to play, there was a constant worry about collapsing again.
Having been part of the Swansea squad which just missed out on the playoffs in the 2009-10 season, Idrizaj headed to Austria in the first few weeks of the close season for some down time with his brother and their partners. It was in Linz in the early hours of May 15, 2010 that he suffered a cardiac arrest. After his brother and ambulance crews fought to save him, he was pronounced dead in hospital. He was 22.
Swansea's players wore t-shirts with Idrizaj's face on when they won the Championship playoff final in 2011 (Getty Images)Tributes were paid to Idrizaj at the Liberty Stadium and Swansea held a minute's silence before their first home game of the 2010-11 season, a 4-0 win over Preston. The club also retired Idrizaj's No.40 shirt, and then at the end of that campaign - as they secured a first ever promotion to the Premier League with 4-2 playoff final win over Reading - the players lifted the trophy in t-shirts with a Idrizaj's picture on.
Goalkeeper Dorus de Vries had said before the play-off semi-final against Nottingham Forest that: “A lot of us still talk about him. He is still in our thoughts. He was a great colleague, a great team-mate, but he was also a great friend and you can't just forget that. We said as a group that this year would be for him and hopefully we are doing him proud this season." They certainly did.
Swans manager Brendan Rodgers said Idrizaj was an inspiration for the team (Getty Images)"He’s always in our memories," winger Nathan Dyer would say after the Wembley win, with manager Brendan Rodgers, on his own journey to Liverpool, adding: "The journey was a great remembrance to him all the way through the season. I felt that he was really in the heart of the players and people."
As LASK Linz and Liverpool come together, Idrizaj's life and tantalising abilities should be celebrated once more.
He will always be remembered in Linz and in Swansea, and on one afternoon in Wrexham he gave Liverpool a glimpse of what might have been.
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