'Speed of change has not slowed' - Kerkez's rapid rise to Liverpool
Milos Kerkez has never been big on patience. "That's always the problem," he joked midway through his breakout season at AZ Alkmaar, a teenager already agitating to play more, train harder and reach higher.Most 18-year-old's would have been happy just to be there. Kerkez wanted more - and always has. From leaving AC Milan's academy to become a first-team starter in the Eredivisie, to rejecting bigger names for a chance to explode at Bournemouth, his trajectory has only ever pointed one way.Kerkez was born in Serbia and moved to Hungary at 15, vowing immediately to represent their national team. He captained youth sides despite barely speaking the language. "He's a crazy guy," one youth coach said. "He'll make it to a top-three league or be in prison." After all, Kerkez started as a number 10. By 16, he had moved to left-back and then, at 17, he signed for Milan. The speed of change has not slowed.At AZ, the club handed him a dossier thicker than a phone book, containing stats on his reaction time, pressing habits and recovery runs.Kerkez devoured it. He tackled with his head, launched touchline assaults like a man possessed and emerged as one of Europe's most relentless full-backs. Bournemouth came calling with a well-crafted pitch - and won out over bigger names.Since then, he has been a talisman in Andoni Iraola's turbo-charged system, combining ferocity in defence with electricity going forward.Off the pitch he is a Twitch streamer, a Fortnite fanatic and a forest fisherman. Maximus the rottweiler waits at home and, in Serbia, so does his father's dream of a farm and training centre, which Milos now hopes to build.He is fiery and funny, and friends with new Liverpool team-mate Dominik Szoboszlai.And when the Hungary starlet rifles into a top corner or tackles a winger with his forehead, you realise the kid from Vrbas is not just rising. He is rocketing.And he is doing it his way.
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