When the spotlight flashed on his face, his trembling hand finally signing the contract that will make him a Liverpool player until 2028, Darwin Nunez's thoughts will likely have drifted back into his past.
He will have remembered his childhood in El Pirata, a humble working-class neighborhood in Artigas, in Northwestern Uruguay located in an area next to the Cuareim River that's prone to flooding. He will have remembered all the nights he went to bed without dinner and the daily struggles of his mother, who collected bottles she found in the streets to sell so she had enough money to eat.