Every fandom has a cult hero who drops in out of the sky and provides a lifelong memory. The fans of the Phils have Matt Stairs. Steve Kerr was a fine player, but he does seem an odd choice from the gods to hit a title-clinching shot. He did it with the Spurs too. Maybe the gods were sticking it to us. Some people will say that Robert Horry made a career out of this, but he was on only one of the 32 championship teams.
There are guys who have made a career out of being the guy in that place at that time, and being in no place else. It is possible that Divock Origi is the guy for all of soccer. Saturday was his 165th appearance for the club in seven seasons, and he usually is far out into the distance to score the biggest goals for the club. If he was starting all those matches, he would have played 23 appearances per season, not even a starter's load. He came off the bench for the 100th time on Saturday. He has started less than 10 matches per season for seven seasons.
And yet...
It looked like they were never going to score against the Wolves. It seemed like they would waste the loss of Chelsea by closing off space, shackling Mo Salah, and some interesting finishing from the other team.
You can't keep him in a container for 90 minutes. Ryan At-Nouri was set off ahead of him by the touch from the 60-yard pass from van Dijk. This time, he needed an ally, but only a small one.
Considering where the Wolves defenders were, there was Origi, just in the right spot where the planets aligned to form a convergence, not taking the best touch on the pass from Salah, but good enough. Benefiting from being magnetized to the far post and sliding by like he was on an airport people-mover, leaving more than enough room at the back post. In a season where every point could be crucial to win the league, it's important for the Reds to win another game. It seems like he is always doing it, and rarely doing it.
He did this once.
In just five months, he scored three of the most important goals in the history of the team.
That is all he does. He plays in the League Cup or European games that don't mean anything. That is it. He is usually a substitute. His ninth appearance of the season was on Saturday and he was third in the league. He is a fifth-choice forward.
Is he good? We don't have an idea. He started the World Cup for Belgium at 18 and there was promise at some point. He was the worst player in France before he came to England. If he were really good, he would have grabbed a place on the team more often. He wouldn't be here if he were terrible.
He has had chances to not be here. There was a time in Germany. There have been many transfer offers. He has turned them down before.
Maybe that is the thing about Origi. He is content to stand still and let the world move around him. His season-changing goals come about. The winners against Barcelona. He just happened to be there when some truly inexplicable things happened, like the entire Barcelona defense turning the wrong way or a ball bouncing on the bar twice before falling inbounds.
You can see the expression of a man who can't really explain it when you watch Origi after these goals. Maybe he knows that things will fall into place for him, but he doesn't know why. He is soccer's Domino, where things happen to him because he is there. His presence makes things unbalanced and yet he balances them perfectly.
Being the most surprising choice to do so is also the joy of getting to do all this. His instincts would have to get him into these spots. How can his instincts be so sharp when they are not used much? There is something about it.
There will still be time for Origi to go somewhere else to play, because he will be 27 in April. Maybe he can get back into the squad. Maybe he is just content to be at the center of everything a few times per season, with no explanation, the calmest presence in the middle of a storm that is his own creation. Smiling politely all the time, as shocked as you are that it has happened to him again, but raking in all the joy from it. The randomness is fun if you don't like it. It can't be explained, so why not just smile?
