Serious and professional, he has played the game on two continents and coached it on three, studying the sport at a pair of American colleges and earning a diploma in Science and Football from Liverpool John Moores University.
Resourceful and obsessive, he worked for a time as an undocumented immigrant, doing odd jobs for low pay to continue his soccer education in the U.S., then stood on a table to peer over a fence and watch Liverpool's closed training sessions after moving to England.
It's a singular path that has taught him to trust science, trust his instincts and not to fear exploring the road no one else has taken.