Rio Ngumoha has come in for plenty of praise from the UK media after making his senior debut for England on Saturday.
The 17-year-old isn’t in Thomas Tuchel’s squad for the World Cup but has been included for the travelling selection for two warm-up friendlies prior to the tournament, and he played the second half of the 1-0 victory over New Zealand in Tampa.
In the process, the Liverpool teenager became the fifth-youngest Three Lions debutant in history at 17 years and 281 days, eclipsing two former Reds players in Raheem Sterling (17y, 342d in November 2012) and Michael Owen (18y, 59d in February 1998).
Although some may have expected England’s margin of victory to have been greater, Ngumoha’s performance received widely positive reviews as he represented his country at senior level for the first time.
Oli Gent of The Standard wrote: ‘A livewire off the right flank, using his trickery and quick feet to good effect on his senior debut. Full of confidence, as shown by his double drag-back late on to bamboozle his marker.’ (8/10)
For GOAL, Mark Doyle summarised: ‘The Liverpool teenager obviously isn’t in the World Cup squad but he was full of positive energy.’ (6/10)
Charlie Malam of the Daily Express gave Ngumoha a 7/10 but was a bit more critical, writing: ‘His end product, from his weaker foot, was inconsistent with some overhit crosses and he should have done better with a pass into [Ivan] Toney but looked like he could make things happen.’
Elsewhere, Sky Sports‘ Nick Wright hailed a ‘lively showing’ from the Reds winger in his match report, while on talkSPORT, Adrian Durham claimed that Arsenal duo Bukayo Saka and Noni Madueke ‘are lucky to be in the squad’ ahead of him.
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It’s hard to read a great deal into a pre-tournament friendly played in stifling heat in which every England player had just 45 minutes on the pitch, but there was still enough evidence from Ngumoha to warrant his inclusion in the travelling squad.
In addition to the largely positive reviews from the British media, the 17-year-old’s match statistics (via (Sofascore) paint a positive picture of how he fared on his national team debut against a New Zealand side who’ll also be at the World Cup.
Such has been the impression made by the teenager at Liverpool in the 2025/26 season that Bayern Munich have reportedly been exploring a move for him, but Anfield chiefs are unsurprisingly in no mood to even entertain the idea of selling him (The Athletic).
Wayne Rooney has described Ngumoha as a ‘joy to watch‘ over the past few months, and the Reds winger did his chances of future selection by Tuchel no harm with how he performed on his senior England bow on Saturday.
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Everyone can see what a talent we have except slot. There were so many times we could have played ngumoha but he didn’t.
He’s only going to get better, should have been in the England world cup squad. Can make a difference from the bench and make things happen. Remember what Michael owen did against Argentina in the world cup.
Can we keep him at Liverpool would be my concern. FSG have history of selling our best players. They sold raheem sterling who was the best young player in the country at that time, FSG refused to pay the wages he was and was sold to our rivals Manchester city. Sterling went on to score 130 goals and made 95 assists.
At some point Rio ngumoha will want big wages. If FSG wont pay it he will go.
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