A 28-man Liverpool squad is making its way across the Atlantic today to commence the Reds’ pre-season tour to USA.
The full list of names was confirmed by the club’s social media channels on Tuesday, with a series of first-team regulars omitted due to their involvement in major tournaments for their countries over the summer.
However, as per Liverpool Echo, four men who were away at either Euro 2024 or Copa America could potentially fly out to join up with the group later in the Stateside tour.
Alisson Becker, Diogo Jota, Ryan Gravenberch and Ibrahima Konate could yet bolster the numbers in what’d come as a welcome boost to Arne Slot as he continues to familiarise himself with the players he’ll be managing over the 2024/25 season.
With three weeks being the standard duration that players have off after their involvement in a major tournament, we could indeed see the aforementioned quartet linking up with the Liverpool squad while in the USA.
Brazil and Portugal were both knocked out at the quarter-final stage in their respective competitions on the first weekend of July, which could free up Alisson and Jota to return next week ahead of the matches against Arsenal and Manchester United.
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Although Gravenberch and Konate were both involved in squads whose Euro 2024 dreams ended on 9/10 July, neither of them actually played at the finals in Germany, so theoretically they could team up with their club prior to the three-week window ending.
Even if they don’t, they might still be available for the United game on 3 August, although it could be argued with justification that allowing them to build up their fitness on Merseyside would be preferable to flying them to USA and back for just one match.
It’ll most likely be determined on a player-by-player basis as to whether or not those four players fly out to America over the next week or hold off until the squad returns home to begin preparing for the new season in earnest.
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