The stereotypical Hungarian, I am telling Dominik Szoboszlai as I read him an excerpt from a tourist guide, is blunt, passionate, friendly and pessimistic. A quizzical look spreads over his face.
‘So, I don’t think negatively,’ Szoboszlai says. ‘I would say not at all. Because that also brings you negativity. But I think I’m a straight person, so I’m saying what I’m thinking. What was the other? Friendly?
‘I think if you know me, then you would agree with that. But maybe if you don’t know me, then I don’t look that friendly. And blunt? I like to be straight and say the truth and say what I think. Even if maybe you don’t agree with me, I will still always say it. And then we can argue.’
Actually, we don’t argue. Even if sometimes it feels as if I am rummaging around in the entrails of Liverpool’s disappointing season and asking questions that seem more like accusations, Szoboszlai does not blink. He is not defensive or evasive. He says, as he said he would, what he thinks.
It is the curious fate of Szoboszlai to have been Liverpool’s best player, by a distance, in a season of disappointment. It is his lot to have been a beacon of defiance and of brilliance in a season when Liverpool surrendered the Premier League title with barely a growl.
Szoboszlai’s most recent act of solo beauty came in last weekend’s 3-2 defeat by Manchester United when he dragged his team back into the game, running from the Old Trafford halfway line, taking on the United defence on his own and passing the ball precisely past Senne Lammens and into the back of the net.
Dominik Szoboszlai has been Liverpool’s best player, by a distance, in a season of disappointment. He has been a beacon of defiance
Szoboszlai’s most recent act of solo beauty came in last weekend’s 3-2 defeat by Manchester United when he ran from the halfway line and passed the ball precisely into the net
His team may have been lambasted week after week for a whole range of failings but it is a measure of just how good he has been that, out of that mire, Szoboszlai is in the running to be named in the PFA Team of the Year and on the shortlist of six for Player of the Season.
But if a rising tide lifts all ships, a lost title is like a rip-tide that tosses victims into the churn. It asks questions of Liverpool players that they would not have been expected to answer were they not facing Chelsea on Saturday, still sweating on their place in next season’s Champions League.
Some of those criticisms are, frankly, laughable. Even in the last few days, Szoboszlai, 25, has been accused, along with Curtis Jones, Florian Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong, of showing disrespect to United by playing a few rounds of keepy-uppy in the Old Trafford tunnel before the game.
The criticism was made, initially, by former Liverpool midfielder Don Hutchison and has been repeated by others. It has been pointed out to them that the Liverpool players were in the tunnel because the dressing room was too small to play in. And what would people rather the players were doing? Staring at their phones?
‘The thing that people don’t know,’ Szoboszlai says, as he sits in a room at Liverpool’s AXA Training Centre, ‘is that we used to do this before every game throughout the whole of last season, and through this season. We did it every game, and we just don’t want to change it.
‘And it’s not that we disrespect someone. We just want to get into football. We just want to be with each other. I think it is better to play one-touch and warm-up with a football than sit in the changing room, be on your own, and just don’t talk to each other. It was an hour before the game. Trust me, 10 minutes before the game starts, everybody’s ready. It doesn’t matter if we played one-touch or we didn’t.’
The criticism falls into a recurring theme that accuses the players of being somehow unserious. They are given too much time off, it goes. They do not care enough. The reality is simply that this is now a team in transition. Some of Jurgen Klopp’s players are getting older. Many have left, or are about to leave. Liverpool are having the season many expected them to have last season.
‘Criticism, in general, is completely normal,’ Szoboszlai says. ‘We are trying to build a new team because a couple of guys left and we got a couple of new guys. So I think we have to take this season as a time to rebuild.
Szoboszlai has played wherever he is asked, without complaint. He has scored important – and spectacular – goals
Szoboszlai fires in a brilliant free-kick against Arsenal at Anfield back in August
‘But the fans have to know that we are also unhappy with the season. We do this for them because without them, it makes no sense to play football, actually. We do care. And if they could know how many talks we had between each other to find a way to get out of this, then they will be surprised. So we are on it.
‘I also see stuff about what we are doing in our free time. Well, we are also humans. A couple of times we are also getting days off, not so many as people maybe think. And we would like to enjoy them as well. Because even though we love what we’re doing, we also need a little bit of a switch-off.’
Anybody who thinks Szoboszlai is the kind to take it easy does not know his story. His father, Zsolt, was an ex-professional whose career was ended prematurely by an achilles’ tendon injury and who poured all his frustrated ambitions into his young son.
Szoboszlai left home when he was 15 to pursue a professional career in Austria and had to grow up without getting to know his sister, who was born after he had moved away. The free time he is allowed now, he spends with his wife and young daughter.
‘My goal is to try to be an example for every little boy who starts to play football,’ he says, ‘so they can see it doesn’t matter where you start or where you come from, you can achieve anything if you put enough effort, enough time, enough sacrificing in the thing you do.
‘It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t have to be football, it can be something else. And also, I want to be, for my daughter, the best dad that she can imagine and be there for her and help her in anything she needs.’
It adds a slightly different complexion to the ‘Szobo’s Watch’ incident a few months ago. Some Liverpool fans were irritated that he posted a picture of an expensive timepiece on his Instagram account when he was away on international duty with Hungary. It was interpreted, by some, as a symbol of a growing disconnect between Liverpool fans and players. Szoboszlai was too flash, some said, and Liverpudlians do not like flash.
I ask Szoboszlai if he thinks he’s flash. ‘I don’t know what that means,’ he says, ‘but it’s completely normal that if you don’t know me, you will have an opinion on me based around what you see on social media and stuff.
I ask Szoboszlai if he thinks he’s flash. ‘I don’t know what that means,’ he says, ‘the most important thing is what I do on the pitch and not what I wear outside of the pitch’
‘Last season I was a little bit in shadow. I did everything for the team, which I do now as well. But last season, I forgot about myself a little bit, and this season I didn’t’
‘But I think I showed the fans already what it means for me to play here and to go every week, every game, to the pitch and do everything I do for the team, for the club, and for them. So if I post something or I wear something, it’s just part of the game, it’s part of me, and that’s me.
‘And I think that the most important thing is what I do on the pitch and not what I wear outside of the pitch. Because if I drop my performance or I stop fighting as much as I’m doing every week, then I would understand their frustration and I’m going to listen to them. I think I showed them that whatever I’m doing outside of the pitch, I’m always ready on the pitch.’
Szoboszlai is right about that. He has been a shining light for the team this season. He has played out of position at right back. He has played wherever he is asked, without complaint. He has scored important goals and spectacular free-kicks. He has worked himself into the ground.
But as Liverpool go into the game against Chelsea at Anfield, they sit in fourth place, above Aston Villa only on goal difference. They are six points clear of in-form Bournemouth, who lie sixth and so victory against Calum McFarlane’s struggling side would be enough to effectively guarantee them a place in next season’s Champions League.
Despite that, many Liverpool fans are still calling for manager Arne Slot to be sacked, even though he won the title with the club at the first attempt last season and even though this is, quite clearly, a team in transition. Those supporters have lost faith in the manager but Szoboszlai has not.
‘That’s not a question at all,’ Szoboszlai says. ‘He’s our manager. And we are in his second season. In his first season, don’t forget, we won the Premier League. So no one lost faith in him from our side.
‘Rumours come and go but he proved that he’s able to win the Premier League and we proved it as a team, as a staff, as a club that we are able to win the Premier League. So now we just have to keep on working and give it a try next year as well.
‘It’s not my job to tell you what has gone wrong or what is right. That’s why we have a manager, we have a staff behind him, to find out how we can get out of here and tell the players what we have to do to go in a different way.
‘We are trying to build a new team,’ says Szoboszlai, ‘because a couple of guys left and we got a couple of new guys. So I think we have to take this season as a time to rebuild’
Szoboszlai insists no Liverpool players have ‘lost faith’ in boss Arne Slot despite their disappointing title defence
‘For next season, I don’t like to give hopes. I just think about the next three games right now, because that’s the most important’
‘For my individual form, I think last season I was a little bit in shadow. I did everything for the team, which I do now as well. But last season, I forgot about myself a little bit, and this season I didn’t. I still do all the same stuff for the team I did last season but now I’m also doing the stuff I’m good at.
‘For next season, I don’t like to give hopes. I just think about the next three games right now, because that’s the most important. We didn’t qualify for the Champions League yet, and that’s what we have to do on Saturday, hopefully. And then from there, if the season is over, we have to think how it goes in the future.’
Szoboszlai has had other disappointments to deal with this season, too. Last November, Hungary went into their final World Cup qualifier at home to Ireland, needing only a draw to progress to the play-offs but fell to a heartbreaking 3-2 defeat.
‘I never felt so sad, ever,’ Szoboszlai says. ‘But, yeah, that’s life.’
