Dominik Szoboszlai's Last 8 Champions League Games Have Produced 5 Goals — Liverpool's Secret Weapon

Dominik Szoboszlai has scored in 5 of his last 8 Champions League appearances. Here is why Liverpool's Hungarian midfielder is the overlooked factor in the PSG quarter-final.

While the PSG-Liverpool quarter-final narrative focuses on Salah's farewell season and the PSG champions' defence, the UEFA's own statistical guide to the quarter-finals includes a specific data point that the pre-match coverage has somewhat underweighted: Dominik Szoboszlai has scored in five of his last eight Champions League appearances.

For the context of what this means for the tie: PSG's preparation will correctly identify Salah, Luis Díaz, and Darwin Núñez as Liverpool's primary attacking threats. The specific danger of Szoboszlai's recent Champions League form is that it emerges from precisely the positions and moments that team defensive preparation tends to allocate fewer specific defensive resources to — the late-arriving central midfielder whose run into the area is the final movement in a sequence that has drawn defensive attention elsewhere.

For Szoboszlai's specific attributes: the Hungarian international's specific combination of power, range of passing, and the particular driving run from midfield that delivers him into shooting positions combines with the specific quality of late arriving that his goal-scoring record reflects. His six goals in the 2024/25 league campaign and his Champions League form together describe a player whose attacking contribution significantly exceeds what 'central midfielder' as a positional label implies.

For PSG's specific vulnerability: their high defensive line — which is the fundamental tactical basis of their system's effectiveness — creates exactly the space behind the last defender that Szoboszlai's specific running quality exploits. Enrique will have identified this and adjusted, but adjustment and resolution are different things when the runner has the specific combination of recognition timing and finishing quality that the five goals in eight matches confirm.

For Liverpool's tactical depth: a team that can threaten from Salah, Díaz, Núñez, and from Szoboszlai's late arrivals is a team whose specific attacking variety creates the multiple simultaneous defensive demands that no single tactical approach fully resolves. This is precisely the quality that has Liverpool competing for multiple honours in Slot's first full season.