Exclusive: The inside story of Milos Kerkez's mega transfer to Liverpool

This is the journey of Milos Kerkez and Liverpool.

Growing up in Vrbas as the youngest of three brothers, Kerkez knew from a very young age what he wanted to do.

"I started playing with my brothers at like four or five years old," Kerkez told me back in 2022."I actually didn't start in any team. I played on the streets, you know, on the streets with my brothers most of the time until like six or seven and eight.

"Then I joined the first club in my hometown, Vrbas, and that's when I started. And I started because I fell in love. I see my brother played football. My older brother played football. And when they play football, I say 'I want to play also.' So that was the moment I decide I want to start football."

Kerkez's older brother Marko was regarded as a big prospect in Vrbas and soon the brothers developed a reputation. Milos had the chance to join Serbian giants Partizan Belgrade but in the end he opted to follow his brother to Austria and signed for Rapid Vienna.

Things didn't quite work out for the brothers at Rapid Vienna. But a better opportunity awaited him in Hungary. Kerkez was a zealous young man and he was eager to prove himself, sometimes a little too eager which caused conflicts.

It was a lesson learned when he ultimately left Rapid Vienna but it only made him even more eager to grab the next chance that came his way.

"I went to Gyor for trial when I left Rapid Vienna," Kerkez recalled. "My father and then my Hungarian agent thought this was the perfect place for me and to jump fast in the first team if I do good so I went in under 15 and I stayed there and then like you know how the story went and it was a perfect time there. Really. Yeah. Perfect. Lovely time there."

Former Gyor coach Richard Henczi remembers the first time he spotted a young Kerkez running havoc in Gyor's training sessions.

"I just heard there is a crazy guy in the 2003 group. Initially, he played as a no.10 at that time and he was the captain of the team without any Hungarian knowledge," Henczi says.

The lack of Hungarian knowledge would prove to be an obstacle in the pair's first training session.

"I had a training session with 12 kids and I showed them what they have to do, how at the end of the drill you have to make a pass and he was the only one who made shot always with power. So I was shouting at him like 'what are you doing, I said you have to pass' and other kid said he doesn't speak Hungarian," Henczi recalls.

"So then I talk with him in English and then he understood what I asked, so that was my first impression and then I saw something in him because his agility was really good. He just wanted to win every dribble and every tackle in the training sessions. And he had the mentality that a captain needs to have."

Already, after just a few months at Gyor, many senior figures at the club recognised that in Kerkez they have a supreme talent on their hands.

Plans were forged for the club to create a pathway for him into the first team, who were playing in Hungary's second tier at the time.

"We thought the no.10 would not be his position for adult football so yeah somehow we managed to put him on the left back and that quickly became his position," Henczi explains.

The shift to playing as a full-back suited Kerkez's intensity and gun-ho energy. Having played in more offensive roles, he was also able to contribute a lot going forward.

Very quickly, Kerkez started to dominate youth football and as his performances improved, more and more training sessions with the first team followed, where he was welcomed by seasoned professionals like Tamas Priskin and Nemanja Andric.

He became only the third youngest debutant in Gyor's history when he made his debut at just 16-years-old. In just his third start, he won a penalty by bombing into the box and using his quick speed to force his opponents into a foul.

That burst of speed became a strong feature in Kerkez's game, with Gyor utilising him and often instigating their attacks on the left flank.

"It was crazy for me at the time," Kerkez remembered. "Playing regularly it was a really big thing for me. The league was really physical, and it gave me a lot of hard tools and it was it was a really exciting time for me. That was really a great time."

By the time January rolled around, Kerkez was looking forward to helping Gyor in their ambitions to gain promotion to Hungary's first tier. But those expectations were perhaps naive.

Being such a young age, and having produced some really impressive performances, Kerkez had found himself on the radar of some of Europe's giants, including Juventus and several other German teams.

But it was a call from Paolo Maldini that ultimately swayed him to leave Gyor after just six months in the club's first team.

"Everything was going fast and my decision was to stay and to play the whole season [at Gyor], at least until the summer to grow more physical," Kerkez said.

"It happened in like two days before transfer window ended. Maldini called me personally and my father. He directly called us not not over other people. He called us directly, and he wanted to meet with me and my father.

"They had a game back then with Bologna. And they travelled back, he called us. And yeah, that was the big aspect for me to go there because, you know, when Maldini's calling, you're not thinking too much."

"It doesn't happen every day that someone from second division goes to a club like that and so it was a shock, but totally understandable. We knew there were other Italian teams who wanted to take him on trial and then somehow it got to Maldini and they worked really hard to sign him," Henczi remembers.

At Milan, Kerkez went into the club's Primavera team. But he was given regular opportunities to train with the Italian side's first team alongside the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Theo Hernandez.

"The first time I go there and I'm looking around Ibra and Hernandez and Leao and all these guys. I watched them on TV like two months ago and now I was there training with them, you know, so it was really crazy and a really positive experience and I learned a lot from them and it was really great," Kerkez remembered in an interview with my for SCOUTED.

Going to Milan also played a key role in improving Kerkez's tactical awareness. At the club's academy, he would regularly participate in video analysis sessions to maximise his potential.

"You can learn a lot tactically in Italian football. In Primavera, even after training after games, we do a video analysis for one and a half hour. We did a lot of video analysis, weekly and everything so I grow up really tactically to play more clever and to use my head more on the pitch," Kerkez said.

All the time, the young Hungarian kept improving. In 2021, still only 17-years-old, he made his first appearance for the club's first team in a pre-season friendly and scored a brace in the space of just a few minutes.

There was the promise of a bigger role at senior level, but it never came. Instead, Kerkez caught the eye for AC Milan in the UEFA Youth League.

It was at the AXA training centre coming up against Liverpool in the competition that Kerkez alerted Liverpool's attention for the first time, putting in a strong performance against the likes of Conor Bradley and Owen Beck.

So impressive were his performances that he did not only appear on Liverpool's radar but plenty of other European sides as well.

With the pathway at AC Milan seemingly not being there, he made the bold decision to move on in January 2022 - just after a year at the club. Kerkez listened to plenty of offers but it was AZ Alkmaar's promise and proposal that won him and his father over the most.

The Dutch side had promised to integrate Kerkez into the first team once their current first choice left-back Owen Wijdnal left the club.

The plan was for Kerkez to spend six months playing for Alkmaar's second team before replacing the soon to be departing Wijdnal in the summer.

“Milan is obviously a huge club, and it’s not easy as a young player to get a chance there. But I think with my performances and what I did maybe I deserved a chance, but you know every club has their philosophy how they work with the youth so in the end I decided because of that [not getting a first team chance] I wanted to leave and play adult football," Kerkez explained.

“We had a lot of offers to go out on loan, but being a loan player is a risky situation. Maybe the team wants to play their player from the academy instead of you, so I didn’t really like the loan decision. I wanted to get a permanent transfer if possible, and it was really hard because Milan didn’t want to give me up that easy.

“I had a few clubs from Germany, but I really liked AZ’s offer and it was a simple decision with the way they planned things for me.

“I would not have gone there if they didn’t tell me about the plan to sell Owen, because I knew it was hard to compete against the captain, so they told me I was here to adapt for three, four or five months and then after that I was going to play.”

The rest is history, AZ Alkmaar delivered on their promises and Kerkez would go onto become a hugely influential player for them under Arne Slot's former assistant Pascal Jansen.

18 months after his arrival, some of the biggest clubs in European football were looking at signing the Hungarian. Liverpool were among them, and they made an approach to Kerkez in 2023.

Back then, Liverpool's plans were to gradually integrate Kerkez into the first team, with Andy Robertson remaining as the club's first choice.

For a young player desperate to play regular football, Bournemouth's offer was more appealing. Richard Hughes painted a clear picture for Kerkez about how he was going to be the club's first choice left-back and would get the opportunity to develop tremendously under a brilliant young manager in Andoni Iraola.

Liverpool though never gave up on Kerkez. The club remained in contact with him and as Anfield Watch exclusively revealed made contact to sign him all the way back in November.

Hughes' presence now at Anfield played a key role in negotiations. For Kerkez, who has a deep loyalty, which manifested in his decision to represent Hungary over Serbia, because the former made contact with him before the latter, Liverpool was always his first choice.

He missed out on Hungary's national games in June in order to avoid an injury and ensure his transfer to Liverpool went through without a hitch.

Having become one of the best left-backs in the Premier League, his next mission is to become the best in the world and his former coach Henczi believes he has all the potential to get there.

"I think he's ready to go to the next step. I mean he has everything for it. I think he has everything to be in the top five or ten left backs in the world."

📺 Watch the exclusive interview with Richard Henczi

📕Read how Kerkez can help Liverpool get the best out of Florian Wirtz