Jordan Henderson followed Steven Gerrard as captain and lifted what Gerrard never could
Taking the armband from a club legend is a thankless job, and Jordan Henderson spent years in Steven Gerrard's shadow. Then, in 2020, he raised the league trophy that had eluded Liverpool for 30 years, something Gerrard never managed, and the country's football writers named him their player of the year.
Henderson was born in Sunderland in June 1990 and joined his hometown club's academy at eight. His first-team debut, as a half-time substitute, came in a 5–0 thrashing at Chelsea. A loan at Coventry ended early with a broken foot bone, but back at Sunderland he became a regular, winning the club's young player award twice and a spot on a FIFA list of 13 youngsters to watch in 2011.
Liverpool bought him that summer for a fee thought to be 16 to 20 million pounds. The start was bumpy: a year later new manager Brendan Rodgers suggested he could move to Fulham, and Henderson refused. In 2014 his red card against Manchester City forced him to miss three of the last four games as Liverpool let the title slip. When Gerrard left in 2015, the captaincy passed to him, just as a chronic heel condition and a broken foot kept him sidelined for Jürgen Klopp's arrival.
The payoff came in 2019. Carrying a knee injury, he led the 4–0 comeback against Barcelona that overturned a three-goal deficit, then lifted the Champions League in Madrid, the club's sixth. The Super Cup and the club's first Club World Cup followed, making Liverpool the only English side to win that trio of continental trophies. In 2022 an FA Cup made him the first Liverpool captain to win six different trophies.
He left in 2023 after 12 years, joining Steven Gerrard's Al-Ettifaq in Saudi Arabia before the contract was ended within six months. After a spell at Ajax he returned to the Premier League in 2025. For England he has played at seven major tournaments, and he was the first to be named the country's player of the year at both under-21 and senior level.
Source: Jordan Henderson
