20 facts about Brendan Rodgers
As we welcome Brendan Rodgers to Liverpool Football Club, here are 20 facts you may not know about our new first-team manager.
1. Brendan Rodgers was born in Carnlough, County Antrim, Northern Ireland on January 26, 1973.
2. In 1990 he moved to England and Reading from local side Ballymena United; however, his playing career was cut short due to injury and Rodgers didn't make a single appearance in English football during his year at the club.
3. In 1995 Reading came calling again and Rodgers was appointed academy manager of the club's youth team where some players he coached were not much younger than himself.
4. Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho saw the potential in Rodgers and brought him to Chelsea to play a key role in Roman Abramovich's revolution during the Portuguese's first season at the club in 2004.
5. Throughout his coaching career, Rodgers travelled Europe and visited clubs such as Valencia, Sevilla and Barcelona as well as clubs in the Netherlands to exchange ideas on football philosophy and to learn from some of the best teams and managers in the game.
6. At Chelsea he rose through the ranks and by 2006, the man from Northern Ireland had impressed sufficiently to be installed as reserve team manager at Cobham.
7. Rodgers is married and has two children - a daughter Mischa and a son Anton.
8. Anton, who was born on his father's 20th birthday in 1993, is also a professional footballer, currently playing with Brighton & Hove Albion.
9. Like his dad, he learnt his trade at the Reading academy before moving in 2004 to the Chelsea academy, where he signed scholarship forms in the summer of 2009, but was released in 2011.
10. In 2008, Rodgers made the transition to management when he joined Watford. The Hornets hired him to replace the outgoing Aidy Boothroyd.
11. From there Rodgers moved to the place where he learned much of his footballing trade and took the manager's job at Reading.
12. In December 2009, Rodgers parted company with The Royals but seven months later he was back with Swansea.
13. Within a year they were promoted back to English football's top division with a win over former club Reading sealing the victory in the Championship play-off final.
14. In doing so, Rodgers' Swansea became the first Welsh team to play in the Premier League since its inception in 1992.
15. Swansea's style of play was a revelation to Barclays Premier League audiences. It was a fluid, entertaining brand of aggressive, possession football with the emphasis on composure on the ball and support for teammates off it.
16. The Swans did so well that pundits compared them to Barcelona and hailed their 'European style' of play.
17. Swansea finished 11th in the Premier League at the end of the 2011-12 season.
18. Our new gaffer is nicknamed 'Buck Rodgers' after the fictional character and can speak fluent Spanish.
19. In June 2011, he joined a team representing the Football League to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care in memory of his mother, who died in 2010, and his father, who died of cancer on 10 September, 2011.
20. Rodgers has worked with some of the finest coaches in world football: "I've just been fortunate enough on my journey to come across top British and European managers like Champions League winner Jose Mourinho and a World Cup winner Luiz Felipe Scolari. But my biggest mentor is myself because I've had to study, so that's been my biggest influence."