Gone and Quickly Forgotten

History books will show that Liverpool's 1-0 home defeat at the hands of Olympique Marseilles in the Champions League of two years back ultimately didn't matter. After a shaky start, Liverpool managed to recover enough to make it through the group stages and, eventually, the semi-final.

For one player, however, that game proved to be pivotal. Sebastian Leto was included from the start as Rafael Benitez made a raft of changes that effectively led to an abject performance. Unfortunately for the Argentine winger, he was one of the worst of a bad bunch on the night and his reputation was sealed during those ninety minutes.

It mattered little that he set up two goals a couple of weeks later as Liverpool overcame Reading in the League Cup. Much less that he looked a class apart whenever he played for the reserves. The Marseilles game was what mattered and as a result, he was a bad player.

Not that he had the opportunity to prove anyone wrong. An apparently legitimate Italian passport turned out to be fake and, given Liverpool's success with work permits, inevitably he was denied permission to stay.

This was followed with a season long loan at Olympiakos, a move that was supposed to give him regular football and also an opportunity to prove his worth at the Champions League. Unfortunately for them, they were knocked out in the final qualifying round which meant a season in the UEFA Cup that was hardly of interest to anyone.

Even so, a season in Greece was enough to show what kind of player Leto really was. The basis for judging him was simple: if he took the league by storm and established himself as one of the best players then he was a worthy of a Liverpool return; otherwise get rid.

And, it is fair to say, that he didn't take the league by storm. His was a good season spiced with flashes of creative play that hinted as to why Liverpool had bought him. Yet, the memory of the season that really stuck was that of his fight with manager Ernesto Valverde that saw the player being suspended. Not the ideal way to get noticed.

All of which led to an inevitable situation. Liverpool applied for a work permit but without much conviction - the negative experience of Mark Gonzalez has taken the desire to fight such rulings out of Liverpool - so it was hardly surprising that the bid failed.

Throughout all this there was also little effort to hide that Liverpool now saw him as a saleable asset. Bought for £1.8 million, there was never any doubt that the club would turn out Panathinaikos' £3million bid that will generate a profit and also add to the funds available for Benitez.

So Leto will be sold leaving behind him no visible mark that he passed through and few regrets. Except, perhaps, the doubts of what might have happened had that Marseilles game gone differently.

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