Sepp van den Berg made his debut for Liverpool in the pre-season friendly against Sporting Lisbon in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Liverpool signed the 17-year-old centre-back for an initial £1.3m from PEC Zwolle earlier in the summer, as per the BBC, and the teenager was brought on in the 89th minute during the 2-2 draw with the Portuguese giants on Thursday.
Despite his debut only seeing him appear for barely a minute, van den Berg took to his personal Instagram to thank fans for their support during pre-season and shared he couldn’t wait to rack up more appearances for the club.
“Great night yesterday making my debut for this club! Can’t wait for more! The whole tour you fans were amazing, thank you USA!” wrote van den Berg via his Instagram account.
OPINION
There was a lot of excitement over seeing van den Berg in action for the Reds for the first time on Friday and his debut was a blink and you miss it moment. The 17-year-old barely got a kick of the ball, and it’s fair to say Liverpool fans are left wanting more. As it stands van den Berg is the club’s only summer signing, so there will be a bit of a spotlight on him, especially if that situation doesn’t change. While the teenager may not have been signed in order to walk straight into the senior side, that doesn’t mean he won’t end up featuring for the first-team in the upcoming campaign, after all, Klopp doesn’t steer away from trusting young players. You just have to look at how 20-year-old Trent Alexander-Arnold is the Reds’ first-choice right-back under Klopp and examine how he has already racked up 85 appearances for the senior side. This means that if van den Berg impresses in training, Klopp may utilise him sooner rather than later. The 17-year-old featured 15 times for PEC Zwolle in the Eredivisie last season and impressively averaged a rating of 6.42, while also having a pass completion rate of 88.4%. (Source: WhoScored)
