Liverpool player will take on older sibling – who is named after Home Alone character – when Union Saint-Gilloise visit in Europa League
Kevin Mac Allister was 18 when he found out where his name came from. “Another crazy story, no?” he says. “I can’t understand why my name is the same as a character in Home Alone.
“I was 18 years old when I first heard this news! I had a call from a radio journalist and my family stayed in the kitchen, eating. Well, I do the interview and he [the journalist] said the same question and I said ‘I don’t know, I have no idea. But I don’t think so’.
“But after that I went into the kitchen and my mother [Silvina] had heard the call and said to me ‘you do know your name does come from the movie?’ It was really crazy. It’s always funny when people see the squad and the name ‘Kevin Mac Allister’.”
Kevin will not be the only Mac Allister on the squad lists when his Belgian club, Union Saint-Gilloise, faces his brother Alexis’s Liverpool at Anfield on Thursday in the Europa League.
Kevin’s mother loved the 1990 movie starring Macaulay Culkin as an eight-year-old boy (called Kevin McCallister) left home alone in Chicago as Christmas approaches and Union even picked up on this when they signed him from Buenos Aires club Argentinos Juniors in the summer. The video announcing his arrival used a scene from the film when she realises her son has been left behind and screams the name “Kevin!”.
Kevin Mac Allister in action for Union SG this season Credit: Getty Images/Isosport/MB Media
The Mac Allisters are an extraordinary football family. There is a third brother, Francis – the eldest at 27 – who is a midfielder, like Alexis, with Argentinian club Rosario Central. Not just that but their father, Carlos, is a former Argentina international who played alongside Diego Maradona for Boca Juniors and was good friends with him. Then there is Carlos’s brother, Patricio, who was a striker and a cousin, Luciano Guaycochea, who plies his trade in Malaysia.
“How many families have that connection with football?” Kevin, a central defender, says. “I really enjoyed it when I was younger with my brothers, playing everywhere with just a ball. Maybe on the corner of the street. Or my family had a club in Santa Rosa, La Pampa – Club Deportivo Mac Allister. We went to La Pampa every day and played football. For us it was really easy to do this because we had football in our blood.”
The “family of football”, as he calls it, and it is through their father they get their Irish and Scottish ancestry. Kevin also recalls watching videos of his father playing for Boca and recalls the enjoyment he takes from tracking the careers of his brothers. He was there in the Lusail Stadium in Doha, Qatar, last December when Alexis won the World Cup with Argentina and he was at Stamford Bridge earlier this season, in the away end among the Liverpool fans, when his brother made his Premier League debut for the club away to Chelsea.
“I saw my brother as a world champion and that is the best gift to a family that loves football,” he says. “My father always loves football. When I go back to my house he is on his laptop and is watching the moves of Alexis in the match against Tottenham.
“He’s crazy. He’s crazy about football. Sometimes we are at the dinner table and try and speak about other things and he says ‘well maybe if Diaz played to the left, it’s better if you stand up like this because …’ and he tries to explain all the time.”
Left to right: Kevin Mac Allister, Carlos Javier Mac Allister, Alexis Mac Allister, Diego Maradona, Francis Mac Allister Credit: Mac Allister family
When the Europa League draw was made, Union – who are top of the Belgian Pro-League and drew their first Europa League tie at home to Toulouse – produced another video showing the reaction of Kevin and their players as they flew back from Switzerland having qualified for the group stages of the competition.
“Well, it was great,” he says in perfect English, despite not having had a lesson in the language since 2019. “We were on the plane and the pilot said to us, ‘it’s Liverpool in the group stage’. He [Alexis] knew at the same time about the group and he couldn’t believe it either.
“It is crazy for me, for my family. Nobody can understand how this happened. But it’s football, it is a dream for us… To play against my brother will be incredible but at the moment we stay calm, speak a few words and try to enjoy this part of the football. It is not normal that this can happen on a big stage in Europe.”
It will be the first time Kevin, who is 13 months older than Alexis at 25, has played against his younger brother – at least the first time since they were kids. “Always the matches between us were a big battle,” he says, laughing. “Francis when we were younger was the best, of course. After that Alexis is now the best, I think that. When we were younger I was like the goalkeeper in the family and Alexis and Francis played. But, of course, a lot of times after the matches we had blood on us or maybe a head injury because we played aggressively like Argentinian players!”
Kevin Mac Allister was in the away end at Chelsea when his bother Alexis made his league debut for Liverpool Credit: Getty Images/Marc Atkins
The pair have played together – back home as team-mates at Argentinos Juniors.
“For us, it was always an advantage when Alexis stayed in my team, he improved a lot because the first step in the first team was difficult because in Argentina it is really aggressive football and all the matches are a battle but he improved and showed in Argentinos himself to be one of the best,” he says.
“At the beginning of his career in Argentinos, he played as No 10 who would move forward, pass forward, assist and score and now, of course, he plays with the No 10 on his back. But he plays like a No 5 more defensive and that is really special. But in the past Alexis played as a little No 10 and in Argentina this is a really special number.”
Kevin has not allowed himself, yet, to process how he will feel as he walks out at Anfield not just to face Liverpool but his brother. “Well, I feel really emotional,” he says. “My father will be in the stadium, my girlfriend will be in the stadium, maybe the big family can come for the second game in December [in Brussels] and see the other match.”
It will be a proud but tricky night for their father, in particular. “It will be difficult because maybe one of his two sons will lose!” Kevin says.
The move to Union was a dream come true for Kevin, who has been determined to follow in his brother’s footsteps and play in Europe. It also came a month after Alexis completed his £35 million switch from Brighton to Liverpool. “I was really waiting for this step in my career for a long time, the last two years I really had the energy to come here to Europe, to the best football, I think,” Kevin says. “I think it is the best football in the world and, for me, it is really special to be here. With this club, these colours, I have found in Union like a big family.”
And Mac Allister knows all about football and family.
