Dominik Szoboszlai has signed for Liverpool in a quick-fire £60million transfer, being handed one of the club’s most iconic numbers.
The Reds agreed to pay the Hungarian winger’s release clause to bring him over from RB Leipzig reportedly just hours before it expired last week.
After undergoing a medical on Saturday, Szoboszlai put pen to paper on a five-year contract to become Liverpool’s second signing of an important summer after Argentine World Cup winner Alexis Mac Allister’s £35m arrival from Brighton last month.
He has been handed the No8 jersey synonymous with Anfield icon Steven Gerrard that was recently made vacant by the departure of out-of-contract midfielder Naby Keita to Werder Bremen.
“It’s really, really good. I enjoyed the last [few] days and I’m looking forward to knowing everybody better,” Szoboszlai told Liverpool’s official website.
“The last three or four days went really long; it was not that easy. But at the end I’m here, I’m happy and I can’t wait to get started.
“[A] really historic club, really good players, good coach, everything is good. For me it was perfect to make the next step in a club like this. The fans, the stadium, everything is really good.”
Szoboszlai, 22, notched 10 goals and 13 assists for Leipzig last season including a goal in the German Cup final as he continued his impressive ascent up the European football ladder.
The Red Bull system spotted his talents while in the youth academy of MTK Budapest and he joined RB Salzburg reserve club Liefering as a teenager.
After impressing in Salzburg he moved to Leipzig for a two-and-a-half-year spell which saw him lift the DFB-Pokal twice.
“The first thing for me to say is welcome to Liverpool, Dominik. I know how excited he is to be here with us, so it is important that he understands that we are all just as excited to have him,” Jurgen Klopp told the Liverpool website.
"We already have a little knowledge of Dominik as an opponent because we had a couple of really tough games against Red Bull Salzburg when he was a player there and I think everyone who saw those fixtures will have realised that even at that stage he was a really interesting prospect.
"I'm pretty sure he was still a teenager at that time and since then he has made some big strides – moving to Leipzig, doing really, really well in the Bundesliga, playing for the Hungary national team and then becoming captain of his national team at an incredibly young age.
“These are proper positives and this is even before we even think about his qualities as a footballer. I will not say too much about them at this stage except they are definitely the kind which will hopefully bring a lot of enjoyment and also help us to get results.”
