Aston Villa’s Louie Barry swapped shirts with Liverpool’s Fabinho after his goal-scoring debut in FA Cup defeat and then demanded it back in the tunnel after a word from one of his coaches.
The 17-year-old striker, Louie Barry scored a first-half equalizer in Villa’s 4-1 FA Cup defeat by Liverpool. Barry curled home a one-on-one just before half-time to take the young Villa side in level at the interval. However, three quick-fire second-half goals from a strong Liverpool side sealed the Red’s progression to round four.
At the full-time whistle, the teenage striker swapped shirts with Fabinho. But, a youth coach then reminded him that he should keep his debut shirt. Hence, Barry ran down the tunnel to catch up Fabinho to swap his debut shirt back. The Liverpool defender then made the kind gesture to hand back his own shirt meaning the young striker had two souvenirs from his debut appearance.
The Midlands-born youngster could not hide his pride at scoring on his first senior Villa appearance. He said, “It’s the proudest I’ve ever been in myself. I guess my family were screaming at the TV when I het the back of the net. I’ve never been so proud in my life. I was just happy to score and hopefully there’s many more”.
“I was working hard before and so was everyone else. When I celebrated, everything came out of me. It was a relief, kind of. It was good”.
Barry’s manager, Delaney revealed the young striker’s cool composure under pressure is a sign of things to come for the 17-year-old.