Dominik Szoboszlai had nothing left to give. After the final whistle had blown at Manchester City on Sunday, the Hungary international collapsed to the turf in exhaustion, having just delivered one of the outstanding individual performances of the Premier League season so far.
Szoboszlai had been involved in both goals in Liverpool‘s 2-0 win at the Etihad, teeing up Mohamed Salah to score the first before collecting the ball from the Egypt international and rifling clinically past Ederson to notch his sixth goal of the season in all competitions.
While it was his brilliance inside the 18-yard box that gave Liverpool the advantage against Pep Guardiola’s side, it was his relentless work ethic that helped ensure the league leaders kept their noses in front. It was a victory that, by the end of the 90 minutes, had the triumphant away fans demanding that City hand over their Premier League crown. When asked post-match for his reaction to the supporters’ chants of “we’re going to win the league,” Szoboszlai told Sky Sports: “I didn’t hear it, I was so tired.”
Liverpool’s clash with City was their fourth game in the space of just 12 days, with Szoboszlai one of only two outfielders (alongside captain Virgil van Dijk) to have played every minute during that run. With that in mind, it’s perhaps little wonder he felt tired.
The rewards for such a herculean effort, though, promise to be great for Szoboszlai and for Liverpool. Arne Slot’s side now boast an 11-point lead at the top of the Premier League table — albeit having played a game more than second-placed Arsenal — with just 11 games left. Should Liverpool win the club’s 20th league title this term then the likes of Salah and Van Dijk will, rightly, earn much of the acclaim. But while it is his teammates who might grab the headlines, Szoboszlai has this season cemented himself as one of the most vital cogs in Slot’s machine.
‘He was born for football’
Szoboszlai is used to his reputation preceding him. When he joined Hungarian top-flight club MTK Budapest in 2015, academy director Zsolt Székely was already well aware of his talent.
“I knew of him before I worked with him because two of his father’s friends worked at MTK, and they often told me that I had to watch this kid because he was really good,” Székely tells ESPN. “They always said if he was faster, he could have a big future. I first went to watch him at 12 years old and he was amazing.”
Szoboszlai was scouted by RB Salzburg at the age of 15, but the club were keen for the midfielder to hone his skills back in his homeland before moving to Austria. He spent a year at MTK, which is widely regarded as Hungary’s best football academy.
“He was a great football player,” Székely says. “He had very high football intelligence, he had incredible technique. How he kicked the ball, it was something new to us. When he passed the ball, players always passed it back to him. He always wanted to have the ball at his feet.
“He always stood out. I have never seen such a complete player as him. It was always clear he would be successful. His life was football. He was born for football. He didn’t have a smartphone; he didn’t have Facebook. He just played football all day, with us or with his father. He was crazy about it.”
“You have these people who come into the room and click with everybody, he has that, charisma,” then-Liverpool boss Jürgen Klopp said in a news conference in September 2023. “He was in the team in an instant, that’s clear, and was so happy to come here. It was really nice to see how much it meant to him and that’s it.”
But, like a number of his Liverpool teammates, Szoboszlai’s form dipped in the second half of the campaign, and he started just one of the Reds’ final seven league games as they fell away in the title race, ultimately finishing third behind City and Arsenal.
There was little time, though, for the midfielder to rest and recover before Euro 2024, where Hungary agonisingly missed out on qualification for the knockout stages, winning just one of their group-stage games. It was a lot of responsibility to shoulder for one so young, but Szoboszlai has never been the sort of player to shy away from the spotlight.
“I went to South Korea about 18 months ago, a few months after Szoboszlai had signed for Liverpool, and I saw all of these posters of Son Heung-Min,” Bocsák says. “He was literally everywhere, and I told all my Hungarian friends this is what is going to happen with Szoboszlai, and that’s proved true.
“He had a McDonalds meal named after him in the summer, he’s the face of one of the country’s biggest telephone companies. He’s pretty much everywhere. When Liverpool play, everyone in Hungary is watching.”
Szoboszlai could be ‘star’ for Liverpool
For Szoboszlai and his Liverpool teammates, this season was a clean slate, with Slot arriving from Feyenoord Rotterdam last summer to replace Klopp in the dugout. One hallmark of the Dutchman’s Anfield tenure so far has been his willingness to speak plainly about areas for improvement within his team and, ahead of Liverpool’s Champions League clash with AC Milan in September, he was particularly clear about his expectations for Szoboszlai.
“Something I have to work on with him is that he is also even more involved in scoring goals and creating chances for us because I think last season he scored three [in the league] if I remember correctly,” Slot said.
“For an attacking midfielder at Liverpool his numbers need to go up, but I am really happy with the way he has done until now. I am 100% sure that if he plays in a team with so much quality around him and with the quality he has, he will in the end score more goals as well.”
Szoboszlai, too, has acknowledged that he can add further gloss to his numbers. But, playing in a midfield alongside the ingenuity of Alexis Mac Allister and the technical brilliance of Ryan Gravenberch, the 24-year-old is under no illusions about the fact it is down to him to bring the running power to Liverpool’s engine room.
“I can play better, as the gaffer said I can score more goals, I can give more assists, but I am doing the ‘dirty job’ as well for the team and that is the most important thing to me,” Szoboszlai said back in October. “While we are top of the league and I don’t score any goals, I’ll take it.”
Szoboszlai’s willingness to put in the hard yards was evidenced emphatically at the Etihad on Sunday, where he ran 11.5km — more than any other player on the pitch. By comparison, Kevin De Bruyne, who has been the heartbeat of City’s midfield for nearly a decade, ran just 8.1km, while Nico Gonzalez and Omar Marmoush ran 9.3km and 8.4km respectively.
Considering Liverpool had just 33.9% possession against City — their lowest in a Premier League victory on record since 2003-04 — the importance of Szoboszlai’s impressive work rate cannot be overstated. Still, though, there is a sense that the midfielder is yet to reach his full potential.
“I think he can be better,” Bocsák says. “The conversation in Hungary is that he’s still not as good for Liverpool as he is for the national team.
“He took a little bit of time to really get going and become the main man in Salzburg and the same for Leipzig, so I think next season is when we will really see him become the star of this team. He’s got that potential, and I think, with time, he’ll get there.”
With three months of the season still to play, neither Szoboszlai nor his teammates will allow themselves to celebrate just yet. However, if he does go on to become the first Hungarian to win the Premier League this term, it will mark another remarkable chapter in an increasingly extraordinary career.
“He is a sign for every Hungarian kid that if you work hard enough and you have enough talent you can be successful,” Székely says. “I’m not sure if there is a higher step in world football than Liverpool, but I’m sure Dominik could be a key player for anyone in the world.”
