Dominik Szoboszlai had a rare off-day for Liverpool in their 1-1 draw against Luton at Kenilworth Road on Sunday, but he still managed something which is rarely ever seen in the Premier League.
In a piece for the Liverpool Echo, Paul Gorst highlighted a few moments from the game which may have evaded the attention of the TV cameras, one of which centred around the 23-year-old.
The Hungary playmaker let out his frustrations at one point yesterday by angrily booting a ball away, as can happen to footballers when they’re aggravated during a match.
However, Szoboszlai launched it with such anger that it physically cleared the ground and ended up outside the confines of Kenilworth Road, which at 10,356 has the smallest capacity of any venue in Premier League history (NBC).
As Gorst wrote: “The ball itself threatened to sail higher than the fireworks being set off around the ground and someone near the stadium might just have ended up with a unique souvenir of the day’s action due to Szoboszlai’s ‘have it!’ moment.
“Luckily, the No.8 was not cautioned despite not only kicking the ball away but sending it into another postcode entirely.”
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Luton’s home ground is indeed a quaint rarity in the Premier League in the 2020s, when many top-flight venues are hulking behemoths which rise imposingly above players at pitch level.
Szoboszlai literally booting the ball out of the stadium is more akin to an FA Cup clash away to lower-league opposition than a game at the highest tier of English football, so it was quite the sight from the Hungarian on a day when little went right for him.
His WhoScored match rating of 6.1 was the lowest he’s had so far at Liverpool, while his 66th-minute substitution brought an end to his ever-present status in the current Premier League season (Transfermarkt).
Hopefully the next time the 23-year-old hits a football with such venom, it’ll nestle in the top corner of the opposition net (like against Leicester) rather than ending up in a nearby housing estate!