The FC Dallas striker Ricardo Pepi is the latest young player to be linked with a move to Merseyside, amid reports Liverpool are monitoring his progress for club and country. The youngster has scored 13 goals in 28 games this year in MLS, along with three goals in World Cup 2022 qualifying matches for the USA.
Pepi was born in El Paso, Texas and strong family links to neighbouring Mexico. Like former American ‘wonderkid’ Freddy Adu, Pepi was playing professional football as young teenager, scoring a hattrick for North Texas at the age of just 16.
On the latest episode of our Journo Insight Extra Show,we asked Goal’s Neil Jones to give us the lowdown on the promising American and react to the transfer link with Liverpool:
He said:
“He’s a young American striker. He’s obviously got a lot of talent. He’s scored for the national team recently against Jamaica, he’s 19 and he’s scoring goals in MLS, so he’s going to attract attention.
It would be unusual for Liverpool to take a player from MLS and he goes straight in. It would be unusual for any top Premier League side to do that. There does seem to be a bit of a pathway, [going to] The Netherlands, Germany, maybe would be more traditional. [Sergino] Dest went to Ajax, [Weston] McKennie was at Schalke, Pulisic went to Dortmund before he came to England. There are exceptions to every rule, and if he carries on scoring at the rate he is doing, we’ll see what happens.”
Redmen Reacts
As Neil says, young American talents from MLS tend not to move straight to top-tier European clubs. Football in the US has boomed in popularity since the World Cup in 1994 and they now seem to be producing players capable of playing at the highest level.
If Liverpool were to make a move, they certainly be hoping for a Christian Pulisic, rather than a Jozy Altidore! The standard of Liverpool’s current ‘main four’ attackers, plus the backups in Taki Minamino and Divock Origi would mean limited game time for the young Texan. The Reds will be looking at players at a younger age profile, so if Pepi can keep up his goalscoring exploits, then he will likely remain on their radar.
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