It’s easy to forget that Dominik Szoboszlai was not the first Hungarian to sign for Liverpool. The club actually surprisingly has a long list of players from Szoboszlai’s homeland who have either represented the first team or the academy.
The first was Istvan Kozman all the way back in the 90s – over a decade before Liverpool signed Szoboszlai. But the big surge began in 2007, when Liverpool signed Andras Simon and Krisztian Nemeth and created a partnership with Hungarian side MTK Budapest.
That saw the likes of Peter Gulacsi, Krisztian Adorjan and Kristof Polgar join Liverpool’s academy among several others.
Even more went on trial at the club, including one player who is now teammates with Liverpool’s number eight at international level.
Patrik Demjen
Patrik Demjen is currently the first choice goalkeeper for MTK Budapest, and a regular member of the senior Hungarian national team.
Back in 2013, I exclusively reported about his trial for Liverpool Academy Blog, where the young Hungarian goalkeeper impressed the club’s academy staff. However, in the end with players like Caoimhin Kelleher and Kamil Grabara also on the club’s radar and in the same age-group as Demjen, the Reds opted not to sign the Hungarian stopper.
Now, reflecting 10 years on from his experience, Demjen has been talking to NB1.hu about how he found his trial process at Liverpool.
“Yes, I was at Liverpool with Balint Vogyicska. We were there twice for four to six days,” Demjen said as translated by Rousing the Kop.
“Truthfully, I had very good feedback. When we went out there, we always started in the same age-group as we were in, maybe it’s stayed in my memory differently, but I remember that when they moved us up an age-group we started to grow into things in terms of performance and meet the expectations that were there at the time.
“For me from a goalkeeper perspective, the biggest thing was that physically they absolutely killed me. In that area they were really good. I think they were doing that since they were 11 years old, and so they could take it really well. But with everything else in my opinion I was ahead of them.”
It’s a shame things never worked out for Demjen, he is one of the best young goalkeepers in the Hungarian league and has an incredible record of saving 8 of the 29 penalties he has faced in the league.
At the same time, Liverpool won’t regret their choice. The players who the club brought in after Demjen like Kelleher and Grabara have both turned out to have impressive careers.
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