Liverpool scouts have reportedly been dispatched to keep track of one player who’s set to make his entrance at the World Cup over the next 48 hours.
Reds supporters will have loved what they saw from reported transfer target Yan Diomande as Ivory Coast beat Ecuador over the weekend, with the RB Leipzig starlet earning rave reviews for his performance in Philadelphia.
It seems that he’s not the only World Cup winger who’s on the radar at Anfield, with another (less ubiquitous) name set to be watched by representatives from Merseyside.
According to a report from Zamin, Liverpool scouts will have Uzbekistan forward Abbosbek Fayzullayev ‘under close observation’ at the tournament, with the White Wolves playing their first-ever game at this level against Colombia at 3am GMT on Thursday.
The Anfield delegation are said to be ‘carefully analysing’ the ‘unique talent’ of the 22-year-old, who plays his club football with Istanbul Basaksehir and has a playing style which ‘fully meets the modern demands of English football’.
It’s added that a strong showing by the winger at the World Cup could make a move to the Premier League ‘highly likely’.
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Fayzullayev mightn’t be the most recognisable name among British-based football fans, although he was named AFC Youth Player of the Year in 2023.
Zamin‘s report referenced the winger’s ‘agile movements’ and ‘high football intuition’, in addition to being able to play at a ‘high tempo’, and it’ll be compelling to see how he performs as Uzbekistan make their World Cup debut later this week.
He could turn out to be the kind of breakthrough star that these tournaments tend to conjure up, outshining positional peers with a far greater billing and global reputation, and the White Wolves go into this competition with nothing much to lose and so much to gain.
One valid concern over Fayzullayev is his scoring output at club level, with just 22 in 139 appearances for teams in Uzbekistan, Russia and Turkey. It isn’t the sort of return which suggests that he’d be hugely prolific for a top-level Premier League side.
Nonetheless, Liverpool must see something in him if they’ve sent scouts to watch him at close quarters in the World Cup over the coming days, and the 22-year-old couldn’t wish for a better platform on which to potentially send his career into orbit.
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