The free World Cup on TVNZ already feels like a dream we all had together. Spain are champions, the confetti is swept up, and three weeks later the machine cranks back to life: the Premier League returns on Friday 21 August, champions Arsenal hosting newly promoted Coventry City. Down here that is a 7am Saturday kick-off, coffee in hand, and it is back behind the Sky wall after a month of watching the biggest tournament on earth for nothing. That contrast alone deserves a rant. But it is not what has me staring out the window this week.

What has me staring out the window is who will not be walking out at Anfield. For the first time in nine years, Liverpool start a season without Mohamed Salah. And he did not leave for a king’s ransom. He left for nothing.

A goodbye nobody at Anfield really wanted

Salah is 34 now. His contract ran to 2027, but he and the club agreed to tear up the final year, and at the end of June he walked out of Anfield a free agent. Nine years, a Champions League, two Premier Leagues, an ocean of goals, and it ends with a handshake and an empty locker. As I write this, in early August, he still has not signed anywhere. A deal with the Saudi Pro League is reportedly agreed in principle, with Al-Ittihad, Al-Ahli and the new-money project Neom all in the mix, while Besiktas keep sniffing around from Turkey and even Roma and Juventus get a mention. His own agent shrugs and says we will know very soon.

Here is my honest, hincha’s take: a legend leaving on a free is somehow sadder than any record fee. When a club sells a great player for a fortune, at least there is a story, a war, a number to argue about in the bar. When he just runs out of contract and drifts off in the summer, it feels like the credits rolling on a film you did not want to end. No transfer saga, no farewell tour, no proper last dance. Just a birthday, a calendar, and the cold arithmetic of a boardroom deciding a 34-year-old is a risk. Football does this to everyone eventually, even the ones who felt permanent.

Liverpool look thinner than a title defence should

And it is not just Salah. Ibrahima Konate went on a free too, and so did the great warhorse Andy Robertson, who has ended up at Tottenham of all places. In come names most Kiwis have never heard: the young centre back Jeremy Jacquet, the winger Victor Munoz, prospects rather than proven men. That is a lot of leadership and a lot of goals to replace with youth and hope. I am not writing Liverpool off, nobody sane does that, but a champion (or a would-be champion) that loses this much on frees and reloads with kids is playing a dangerous game. Ask any of us who have watched a big club try to rebuild and win at the same time: usually you only get to do one.

The rest of the league has spent like drunken sailors, of course. Chelsea threw a British record fee at Morgan Rogers. Manchester City bought Elliot Anderson for a small fortune. Arsenal, the champions, quietly added Christos Tzolis and Piero Hincapie. Everyone is loading up. Liverpool, the club that gave us the defining forward of the era, are letting him leave for free and trusting the academy. Bold. Possibly brilliant. Possibly a long autumn.

When to set your alarm in New Zealand

Here is the opening round in NZ time, all of it on Sky Sport. Arsenal against Coventry kicks off Friday 21 August at 8pm in England, which is Saturday 22 August at 7am here. Hull City host Manchester United on the Saturday, 11:30pm our time. The one I will be up for, or rather awake at a ridiculous hour for, is Newcastle against Liverpool: Sunday afternoon in England, which lands at 3:30am Monday 24 August in New Zealand. Salah’s old club, at St James’ Park, at half three in the morning, and I will still find myself watching. Fulham then close the round against Chelsea at 7am Tuesday.

Why a hincha at the bottom of the world still cares

My heart belongs to Colo-Colo and to Chilean football, always. The Premier League is not my first love, it is the glamorous cousin who visits at odd hours. But I grew up understanding that football is really a long argument about time: about players who felt eternal until suddenly they were not, about eras that end while you are looking the other way. Salah walking out of Anfield for free is one of those endings. In South America we would have given him a testimonial, a full stadium, a lap of honour with his kids on his shoulders. The Premier League gives him an expired contract and a rumour about Jeddah.

So yes, I will pay Sky again, grumbling the whole way, and I will set the alarm for 3:30am. Not because I need to know if Liverpool win. Because a season without Salah in it is a strange new country, and I want to see what it looks like from the very first whistle. See you at silly o’clock, hinchas.