Dominik Szoboszlai: How bottle slaloms and golf balls made Liverpool’s new star

Dominik Szoboszlai smiles as his mind wanders back to his childhood days.

The 22-year-old’s journey to Anfield started in the Hungarian city of Szekesfehervar, a 45-minute drive from the capital Budapest. His father, Zsolt, the driving force behind the remarkable rise of the fourth most expensive signing in Liverpool’s history — Szoboszlai cost £60million ($76m) when he joined from RB Leipzig last month — would regularly set challenges for him at home.

One of them involved slaloming with a ball between water bottles positioned across the room. If he knocked one over, he would have to start all over again.

“It was inside the house because we had no garden,” he says. “If the water was still in the bottles, it was easier to dribble past them. But if there wasn’t any in, it was a lot harder. My dad would pour the water out almost every single time.

“If one of the bottles fell, I just had to keep on doing it until none of them fell. I had to stay there until it was perfect. Then I could go!

“I started kicking a ball around when I first started to walk. The first time I went onto the pitch with my dad, I was about three.”

Zsolt, who played in the Hungarian top flight before embarking on a coaching career, co-founded the youth academy Fonix Gold on the outskirts of their home city in 2007, which is where Szoboszlai honed his talent from the age of six.

With a strong emphasis on developing technical ability, Szoboszlai would have to train with a golf ball in each hand to ensure he learned how to win back possession cleanly.

“If someone goes past you, you want to grab his shirt, but my dad didn’t want that because of giving away fouls,” he explains. “He wanted to make sure I grew up without those habits. So, yeah, he’d put golf balls in every player’s hands. If you have that then you can’t grab anyone. He did some crazy things — I don’t want to say all of them!”

Szoboszlai Snr’s methods may have been eccentric, but they were also inspirational in helping to launch his son’s career.

As Fonix Gold won prestigious youth tournaments involving opponents of the calibre of FC Basel and Bayern Munich, scouts soon flocked to watch Szoboszlai play. He was part of the Hungary national team setup from under-15s upwards and has now won 32 senior caps.

A successful trial at Austrian outfit Red Bull Salzburg led to him joining their academy on a permanent basis when he turned 16.

“I always wanted to become a footballer,” he says. “Of course, there were times when it was really hard — when you’d look at your friends going to parties or enjoying life and you’d have to wake up in the morning and go to the training ground.

“Sometimes I’d think, ‘Why am I doing this? I want to enjoy myself as well’. But my dad would say: ‘No, you can enjoy it afterwards’. And he was right.

“He has been the biggest influence on my life. We did everything together. When you are a child, probably almost 90 per cent of people grow up with their mum almost always around. With me, it was my dad.

“I’d just see my mum in the morning when she’d make my breakfast and then in the evening when I came home from training and then went to sleep.”

In Austria, the dynamic midfielder’s progress was rapid. He was 17 when he made his senior debut for Salzburg having initially started out in their second team, FC Liefering.

He was a teenager when he got the striking tattoo of a quote from Steven Gerrard, something that resonated when he inherited the Liverpool icon’s No 8 shirt following his move to Merseyside last month.

In keeping with the competitive edge instilled in him from an early age, he was only given permission to have it done after winning a bet with his father.

“It’s in Hungarian and hard to translate, but it’s something like, ‘God gives you talent but if you don’t work and sacrifice a lot it will mean nothing’,” he says pointing to the ink on his left arm.

”I like the message of it. I always wanted to have a tattoo because my dad had some. He said, ‘OK, find a sentence you want to put on it’. I said, ‘I have one already, so now let’s talk about that bet!'”

This being Zsolt, however, things weren’t quite as easy as that.

“There was a running test in Salzburg and some guy held the record in the academy there,” Szoboszlai continued. “My dad said, ‘Well, if you want to get into the first team, then you have to break this record, and if you break it, then you can have the tattoo’. So I went there, broke the record, then got the tattoo.

“(Cristiano) Ronaldo was my idol but I’d also watch games of Liverpool and other teams. Gerrard was one of the biggest players when I was growing up.

“Now to wear the No 8 is a pleasure and makes me feel proud, but I want to do it my own way.”

Having contributed 26 goals and 34 assists in 83 appearances for Salzburg and won three successive league titles, RB Leipzig secured his services in December 2020.

In moving to the Bundesliga, he followed a path that had already been trodden by Erling Haaland, who had joined Borussia Dortmund 12 months earlier. The pair struck up a close friendship during their time together at Salzburg.

Now, they have been reunited in the Premier League. The Manchester City striker not only sent his congratulations on the move to Liverpool but also provided advice on where to live as Szoboszlai went house hunting in Cheshire.

“Erling and I are still close; we message each other and we talk when either of us has time,” he says. “I live near to him now so we’ll probably have some dinners together.

“Before I joined Liverpool, he just said: ‘Get ready!’ But he knows I’m ready. He told me it is a crazy league and that I’m going to love it.

”I’m not surprised by how well he has done at Man City. I knew what he could do and how much work he puts in. He’s an unbelievable player.

“I know all about the rivalry between Liverpool and the Manchester clubs, but I’m ready. That’s why I’ve come to Liverpool. I want to see how it feels when I’m playing in those games.”

Szoboszlai signed off in style at Leipzig: scoring in their 2-0 DFB-Pokal final triumph over Eintracht Frankfurt. His two and a half years there yielded 20 goals and 22 assists in 91 matches.

During his summer break, he asked his agent, Matyas Esterhazy, to deal with interest from rival clubs. It was in late June, with the expiry of his release clause fast approaching, that Liverpool made their move. After that, the deal was sealed quickly and he duly became the most expensive Hungarian footballer in history.

“My agent doesn’t tell me everything that’s going on behind the scenes, only when he’s sure and we’re ready to go,” he says. “Everything happened in the space of three days. He called me and said: ‘Liverpool are really interested, so let’s talk about it’. The next day we spoke about it and by the third day, we were flying to Liverpool.

“I didn’t have to think much about it. I phoned some people who are important in my life to ask them about it. I also spoke to some players who I’ve played with and have more experience than me. I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do. Liverpool explained their plans and I said: ‘Let’s do it’.”

The size of the club, the pulling power of Jurgen Klopp and his memories of gracing Anfield with Salzburg in the Champions League in October 2019 trumped the fact that Liverpool will not be competing among Europe’s elite this season.

“I really felt the energy from the fans when I played there with Salzburg,” he says. “We lost 4-3 and when I was there on the pitch at Anfield, I was just looking around thinking, ‘Where am I?!’ It was a really good atmosphere, so to now play for them there will be even more crazy.

“The manager is an emotional guy. He puts everything that he has into things and wants us to do the same. If we all do that, then we can reach for the highest honours.

“Of course, everybody wants to play in the Champions League, but I didn’t think about that when I heard Liverpool wanted to sign me. You have to work for it. I wasn’t thinking about the Champions League at all. All I want to do now is make sure we get back there — where we should be.”

Articulate, self-confident and driven, it’s easy to see why his peers voted for him to be named Hungary skipper at the age of just 22.

Away from football, Szoboszlai spends time with his girlfriend, Fanni Gecsek, and his Maltipoo dog, Milo. Call of Duty is his game of choice on his PlayStation and, with the blessing of his father, he plans to treat himself to a new car to mark his arrival in Liverpool.

“Oh, we are still betting all the time with each other!” he says before laughing. “I like cars and he said to me: ‘You can buy whatever car you want, but first you have to achieve something’. So when I signed for Leipzig, I could get a car. When I signed for Liverpool, I could get another car. Between that, no other cars!

“I’ve decided which car I’m getting, but I’m keeping that a secret for now!”