When the mercy of the first drinks break arrived in Dammam, Jordan Henderson clapped half-heartedly towards his Al-Ettifaq team-mates, tugged at his shorts, and attempted to summon the energy to jog the short distance back to Steven Gerrard’s dugout.
He mustered the courage to cover almost ten metres before the spirit of Liverpool’s former captain was sapped to a despondent trudge, his head bowed in resignation as he gulped for respite in the suffocating heat. If this was a night of celebration for Al-Ettifaq, who capitalised on Al-Nassr’s hapless goalkeeper to clinch a 2-1 victory, it was largely a portrait in suffering for the club’s new talisman.
Sympathy maybe in short supply but Henderson was hardly alone in his toil, the 35C temperatures in Saudi
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