Dominik Szoboszlai Commits to Liverpool Until 2031
Liverpool have moved early to lock down one of the pillars of their present and, they hope, their future. Dominik Szoboszlai has signed a new contract that runs to 2031, a deal that ties the Hungary captain to Anfield through his prime and cools talk of a blockbuster move to Real Madrid.
At 25, this is the commitment of a player who clearly believes his best football will be played on Merseyside. Liverpool, equally, are betting that the midfielder who arrived from RB Leipzig in 2023 will define the next era of the club.
Three seasons in, that wager already looks smart. Szoboszlai has racked up 154 appearances in red, scoring 31 goals, many of them the kind that live in highlight reels for years – vicious strikes from distance, clean finishes arriving late in the box, moments that jolt a stadium to its feet. His versatility has been a manager’s dream: shuttling between roles, linking play, pressing aggressively, and still carrying a genuine threat in the final third.
Anfield’s new standard-bearer
What has really shifted over those three years, though, is not just his output. It is his authority.
Szoboszlai captains Hungary already, and that responsibility has bled naturally into his club game. He drives Liverpool’s press, barks instructions, demands intensity from those around him. In a side that has undergone significant change since his arrival, he has become a reference point, central to both short-term plans and long-term vision.
It is no coincidence that his name now sits in conversations once reserved for the club’s most iconic figures. The comparison is not like-for-like, and everyone at Liverpool knows it, but the echoes are hard to ignore.
Following Gerrard’s path, not his shadow
Steven Gerrard set a bar at Anfield that feels almost untouchable. Local, homegrown, emotionally welded to the city and its people, he was more than captain; he was the embodiment of Liverpool on the pitch.
Szoboszlai is not that, and no one is pretending otherwise. He did not grow up in the streets around the stadium. He did not come through the academy. He arrived from Leipzig as a ready-made international, not a hometown prodigy.
Yet his trajectory is pulling him towards that same leadership space. His current No.8 shirt is heavy with history, and he wears it like someone who understands exactly what it represents. Former Liverpool midfielder Vladimir Smicer, a Champions League winner in 2005 and a man who shared a dressing room with Gerrard, sees a player on the right track.
Smicer believes Szoboszlai can one day succeed Virgil van Dijk as Liverpool captain, noting that while Gerrard spent his whole life at the club and Szoboszlai has only three years behind him, the Hungarian is already walking a similar path. In Smicer’s eyes, if the day comes when Szoboszlai is widely viewed as Gerrard’s successor in that role, the legendary No.8 would hardly object.
Echoes of Nedved
The admiration does not stop at Anfield’s doors. Szoboszlai’s relentless work rate, his running power, his ability to influence games from box to box have drawn comparisons to Ballon d’Or winner Pavel Nedved. Smicer, a fellow Czech, has spoken of the similarities between the two – the same drive, the same willingness to carry a team in big moments.
For Liverpool, that blend of flair and graft is priceless. This is not a luxury playmaker who floats on the edge of contests. Szoboszlai digs into tackles, tracks runners, then bursts forward to change the tempo. He is as comfortable setting the tone off the ball as he is delivering the decisive pass or strike.
A looming change of guard
All of that feeds into one looming question at Anfield: what happens when Van Dijk’s contract runs out next summer?
The Dutch defender has been the club’s defensive rock and captain, the calm at the heart of the storm. If he moves on, someone will have to absorb that responsibility. Someone will have to take the armband, the scrutiny, the expectation.
Inside and outside the club, Szoboszlai’s name keeps surfacing. He already leads his country. He already influences games and standards. He already feels like a player others look to when the tempo rises and the stakes sharpen.
Liverpool’s unbeaten start to the 2026-27 season, across both domestic and European fronts, has only reinforced that sense. In the middle of a side evolving again, Szoboszlai looks less like a supporting act and more like a central character.
Legacy on the line
He may never reach Gerrard’s level of adoration. Few ever will. Gerrard was a once-in-a-generation connection between club, city and crowd, something almost impossible to replicate.
But Szoboszlai is carving out his own route to greatness. A long-term contract to 2031, a growing influence in the dressing room, and the realistic prospect of inheriting the captaincy form the backbone of a potential legacy.
If he does take the armband, the next step is clear: trophies. Lifting major silverware as Liverpool skipper would cement his place in club folklore and give weight to every comparison, every prediction made about what he could become.
The contract is signed. The path is laid out. Now comes the part that defines careers: can Dominik Szoboszlai turn promise, presence and a coveted No.8 shirt into an era of his own at Anfield?
