One Liverpool player who’s been omitted from the pre-season tour to the United States is set to leave the club imminently.
Armin Pecsi joined from Puskas Akademia in his native Hungary last summer, with the 21-year-old yet to make his official senior debut for the Reds but featuring in the first-team matchday squad on a handful of occasions last season.
He made his senior international bow last month in a 3-1 victory over Kazakhstan in a friendly played just before the World Cup started, a game in which LFC midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai scored one goal and set up another.
As reported by the Liverpool Echo, the goalkeeper is close to agreeing a season-long loan with TSV Hartberg in Austria, who finished sixth in their country’s top flight in 2025/26.
In light of that development, Pecsi hasn’t been named among the initial 31-player Liverpool squad which flew out from John Lennon Airport this afternoon for their pre-season tour to the USA.
First-choice goalkeeper Alisson Becker is also absent as his post-World Cup break continues, with Giorgi Mamardashvili and Freddie Woodman set to play between the sticks for the upcoming friendlies against Sunderland, Wrexham and Leeds.
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With Pecsi fourth in the pecking order behind Alisson, Mamardashvili and Woodman, his senior minutes at Liverpool were always likely to be extremely limited for the time being, and gaining valuable first-team exposure in a decent European league should do him the world of good.
Three seasons ago, fellow stopper Vitezslav Jaros had a successful loan spell at Red Bull Salzburg from Anfield, winning the Austrian double with Sadio Mane’s former club, so that serves as an encouraging precedent for the 21-year-old.
He may well have been involved for the Reds in pre-season if he weren’t on the cusp of joining Hartberg, but his development is surely better served by moving to a club where he’s much likelier to get all-important game-time.
Puskas Akademia president Balaza Toth previously told Nemzeti Sport (via Liverpool Echo) that Pecsi has a ‘beautiful future ahead of him’, and the recognition from the Hungarian national team indicates that he’s progressing in the right direction.
In the likely event of his loan move to Austria being finalised, we wish the goalkeeper all the best with Hartberg, where hopefully he’ll start regularly and duly return to Liverpool with invaluable experience under his belt.
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