Gary Lineker inadvertently converted Abdukodir Khusanov’s agent into being a Liverpool fan while starring for Everton.
The Match Of The Day host famously played for the Toffees after leaving boyhood club Leicester City in 1985 and scored 40 goals in 57 games as the Merseysiders narrowly missed out on the First Division title to rivals Liverpool.
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In the present day, Lineker revealed that he got talking to a man in his hotel on Saturday morning left him just a little bit confused with his admission.
Speaking on The Rest Is Football, Lineker said: “I stayed up north on Friday and then at the hotel the following morning before I went to Match Of The Day a guy came over to me.
“He came over and with a strong accent said ‘Gary, I’m from Uzbekistan and you were my hero growing up and you’re the reason why I became a Liverpool fan.
“I went ‘erm, hang on a minute’, and he said, ‘no, I will explain’.
“He said ‘in my mind it was Liverpool and then I looked and it was Everton, but I was already a Liverpool fan’.
“Then he said ‘I’m Khusanov’s agent’, so I said ‘is he going to play’ and he said he didn’t know but he’s in the squad.
“I asked how is he going to do but he said ‘well he’s young, doesn’t speak a word of English and I think he’ll need a bit of time but he’s a really good, talented player.
“Obviously then that happened in the first minutes and I thought ‘oh I can imagine him watching that in the stands watching that poor fella.”
While Lineker was a prolific poacher in his day, even he couldn’t help but feel sorry for Khusanov following his debut from hell.
Lining up for Man City against Chelsea, the 20-year-old made a costly error inside the first two minutes of the game to allow Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke to give the London side the lead.
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It was a disastrous start to life at his new club with Khusanov brought off by Pep Guardiola after 53 minutes with the Spaniard supporting his player post-match.
“Well, what I thought is not the best start, right?,” Guardiola said.
“He will take a lesson. He’s so young, he’s come for many years. It’s not the best start of course, but dealing with [Nicolas] Jackson, with Cole [Palmer], with all these incredible players is not easy.
“He will learn. He’s young, he will learn, I’m pretty sure. Take a lesson from that.”
Asked what he said to the youngster after the match, Guardiola said: “I have to learn Russian or Uzbek to communicate with him [Khusanov].
“He doesn’t speak fluently in English. In this kind of situation, there’s nothing much to say. He knows he made a mistake.
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“What can I say? Don’t do a mistake? He doesn’t want to do it, so we know that.
“I make a substitution mainly for the yellow card, not just for the mistake. I need John for Wednesday.”
Khusanov is ineligible for Wednesday’s Champions League clash with Club Brugge, meaning that the Uzbekistan international will have some time to refocus.
But his next task might not be much easier with Man City traveling to face Arsenal on Sunday afternoon.
