When we see Dominik Szoboszlai routinely putting in electrifying performances during his first six months at Liverpool, it’d be easy to assume that he’s taking to life on Merseyside like a duck to water.

However, we only witness what he does on the pitch for a few hours each week, and not the reality of a young man trying to adapt to a new life in a foreign country after a high-profile job change.

The 23-year-old opened up about life away from the football field in an honest interview with journalist Mark Soos for Fodball.

In one quote translated by Bence Bocsak on X, Szoboszlai admitted to sometimes feeling ‘lonely’ during his time in England so far.

The Liverpool player said: “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel lonely sometimes. There are days when I’m just sitting on the couch wondering about what to do. Then I put on a movie and try to fall asleep, hoping for tomorrow.”

It’s easy to fall into the trap of viewing top-level football players as Teflon-like commodities who make so much money that they should just get on with it and be happy for the opportunity to live their dream.

The football players we support every week, however, are individuals just like us who experience both good and bad times, and their self-assured, happy public personalities may mask the challenges they deal with on a personal level.

Keep in mind that Szoboszlai is only 23 years old and is still adjusting to life in England. This comes with a cultural and linguistic change, even though he speaks English very well, as well as the pressure to pay back the £60 million that one of the biggest football clubs in the world paid for him.

As much as we love seeing him work wonders on the pitch, it’s even more important that he can be happy and healthy during his day-to-day life on Merseyside.

He deserves huge credit for having the courage to admit his feelings of vulnerability and loneliness off the field, but thankfully he couldn’t have a better manager than Jurgen Klopp to handle those issues with the utmost empathy and understanding.

We hope that Szoboszlai will be able to call upon a trusted support network around him to help him through the tougher times away from Anfield.