He’s the man who has become almost forgotten in the story of Liverpool’s transformation under Fenway Sports Group. But his influence continues to felt long after his abrupt and unexpected departure.
Damien Comolli returns to Anfield on Thursday evening as French Ligue Un outfit Toulouse, of whom he is president, take on Jurgen Klopp’s side in a clash between the two leading teams in Europa League Group E.
Comolli was one of the first major appointments by FSG – then known as New England Sports Ventures – when arriving as director of football strategy less than a month after the Americans had replaced Tom Hicks and George Gillett as owners.
The remit of the Frenchman – who had previously worked at Monaco, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Saint-Etienne – was to not only oversee the recruitment of new signings, but also the creation of an improved analytics department as part of a drive for greater use of data-driven decisions.
Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez were brought in on the same day in January 2011 as Fernando Torres departed, and after Comolli was named the club’s first director of football two months later, the next summer Jordan Henderson was joined by Charlie Adam, Stewart Downing, Jose Enrique, Sebastian Coates, Craig Bellamy and Doni.
Liverpool won the League Cup the next season but, six weeks later in April 2012 with the Reds hugely underperforming in the Premier League and many of his signings failing to spark, Comolli was sacked – a decision he later claimed FSG chief John Henry admitted was a mistake.
“I could see they would be absolutely ruthless if they didn’t feel comfortable with something and they were ruthless with me at the time,” said Comolli. “I think they panicked when they got rid of me and lacked experience. We were on the right path and had the right players and right ingredients.
“They sacked me, then John Henry came a week later (to the club) and had a review, and in a meeting I heard from my former staff he’d said ‘oh my God, we’ve sacked the wrong person’.”
While Comolli’s hit-rate wasn’t the highest, Suarez proved a huge success and Henderson went on to become Liverpool captain and lifted the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Super Cup and the Reds’ first Club World Cup, all under Klopp.
And key to that trophy-wining machine was the influence of Michael Edwards, who Comolli had snapped up from Tottenham Hotspur as head of analytics in November 2011. Edwards was subsequently promoted to director of technical performance and technical director before becoming sporting director in November 2016.
“The most difficult thing with data is to make sense of it, then transmit it to the coaches or players in a way that will be useful to them,” said Comolli, speaking exclusively to The Ornstein & Chapman Podcast in 2020. “I asked people around the game who is the best one, and one of them told me Michael Edwards at Tottenham.
“Everybody thinks I worked with Michael when I was Tottenham, but that wasn’t the case. I called him, I told him the position I was planning to create, we had a couple of meetings and then he took the job.
“He’s a very, very bright guy, very bright. We didn’t work over there for a long period of time, but when I left I told him he was going to take over. He said ‘no way’. I said ‘I’m sure they are going to make you sporting director at some point and give you more responsibilities’.”
FSG eventually made that call. And the rest, as they say, is history – which perhaps wouldn’t have happened but for the impact of Comolli during his 18 months at Anfield.
