Hugo Ekitike - Welcome to LFC

[rudedog]

I don’t think the still looked that bad tbh - Whartons boot wasnt high, studs were down, he stayed grounded etc.

If we want refs to start giving reds for mistimed challenges then it’s going to change how the game is played.

[Yozza]

Hugo Ekitike has always been ready for you to notice him

David Guion’s strongest memory of Hugo Ekitike isn’t a goal.

An assist, then? Or one of the forward’s trademark bendy-legged dribbles? That’ll be strikes two and three.

No, the moment that sticks with Guion — the man who discovered Ekitike playing for his neighbourhood team, then gave him his first-team debut for Reims six years later — did not even happen in a match.

The story goes back to the start of 2020. Ekitike was only 17 but was already doing well for the Reims reserve team, who played in the fourth tier of the French league system. As a reward for his progress, head coach Guion asked him to come and train with the senior players for a week, to get a taste of the future that everyone was convinced lay ahead of him.

It went well. As the weekend approached, though, Guion’s thoughts turned to Reims’ next match. He did as he normally did, naming those who would be in his squad, reducing the size of the group. The rest of the players would return to the reserves or do individual work.

Ekitike was one of those who missed the cut. It was probably to be expected, given his age and status. Ekitike, though, was not happy, nor was he going to let the perceived snub pass without comment. He asked to speak to Guion and told him that he thought it was the wrong decision.

“He just could not understand why he was not in the squad,” Guion tells The Athletic. “That was Hugo. He was impatient with everything.”

This is both a criticism and isn’t. Guion says he had to work on Ekitike’s attitude, keep him grounded. He also saw the impatience as a virtue, a marker of a strong personality.

“The kid is very, very, very sure of himself,” says Guion. “That’s his big quality. He’s very conscious of his qualities and he always aims high. He doesn’t doubt himself.”

Dig into Ekitike’s journey from Reims to Liverpool and this emerges as a recurring theme. His skill and physical gifts immediately come across in the highlight reels. The goal and assist figures from last season at Eintracht Frankfurt back up the positive impression. What really captures your attention, though, is the unshakeable self-confidence.

Those who know him best all reference it. It’s also palpable in Ekitike’s interviews, each one reading like a little manifesto, setting out his ambitions and expectations. The temptation is to interpret these as hubris; Ekitike, after all, has essentially had two very good seasons with a period of drift sandwiched in between.

The cumulative effect, though, is oddly hypnotic. He really believes this stuff. Maybe that’s half the battle. Maybe he is as good as he thinks he is.

“Mentally, I’m ready. I have the weapons from a technical standpoint. I can’t wait to show my value.” (FreeFoot Youtube channel, November 2020)

“I’m not scared of anything. When you’re ambitious and you know what you want, why take things slowly?” (Le Parisien, July 2022)

Ekitike grew up in Cormontreuil, a quiet suburb 20 minutes from the centre of Reims. His performances for his local team brought him onto the radar of Guion, then the director of youth development at Stade de Reims.

“I watched him play in a lot of local tournaments,” Guion recalls. “He was the best young player in the region. He scored a lot of goals, made good runs in behind. He was tall and rangy. It wasn’t hard to see his potential.”

Ekitike began training with Reims, joining the academy formally at 12. He progressed through the categories, often playing above his age group. Franck Chalencon, his coach at under-19 and reserve level, describes a player of rare ability.

“He was very refined,” Chalencon tells The Athletic. “He was a skilful finisher, his movement was good and he was intelligent.”

There was only one worry. The physique that had helped him stand out in the early years threatened to become a hindrance as those around him gained muscle and power.

“He was really quite frail,” says Chalencon. “He would snap in two at the first contact. He was always tall and then shot up even more as a teenager, but he didn’t fill out at all. Honestly, at 16, he was a beanstalk. He lost a lot of balls because he would just get shoved out of the way.

“It’s not that his height affected his coordination. You would expect someone with his body type to be awkward, but he wasn’t at all. He was very fluid. We were just scared for him, worried that he would break something every time he went in for a tackle.”

Ekitike did a lot of upper-body work and started to catch up. He did enough to convince Chalencon to take a chance on him in the reserves, paying him back with five goals in 12 appearances in 2019-20.

“You’re playing against men at that level, guys with real experience and athleticism,” Chalencon says. “His first few games were tough but he was very efficient in front of goal. It’s rare to see a 17-year-old kid at that level and even rarer to see one perform like he did.”

It was midway through that season that Guion began to integrate him into the first team. Ekitike was not going to let the opportunity pass him by.

“From the first session, he tried things, took the initiative, took risks,” Guion recalls. “He may have even overplayed a bit, but he wanted people to sit up and take notice. He didn’t have anything to prove to me because I had known him since he was 12, but he wanted the older players to know who he was.”

The confrontation with Guion came at the end of his first week. The coach was taken aback but he grew to appreciate Ekitike’s candidness in the months that followed.

“He is not a moaner,” Guion says. “He’s frank — he’ll tell you what he thinks — but he won’t slack off or complain. He says his piece and then it’s back to business. He has a real work ethic. He doesn’t cause problems.”

Chalencon echoes that view, explaining Ekitike’s ability to learn.

“When you told Hugo something, he listened, understood and put it into practice,” he says. “You could talk to him straight. He was not shy — on the contrary, his ego was already quite developed from a young age.”

This latter point was not seen as a negative. It was part of what Ekitike’s coaches admired about him.

“You felt his personality on the pitch,” says Chalencon. “He had to be the leader of the attack, the star striker. He always wanted the ball, always wanted to be the one who scored or changed a match. When he missed, he just tried again, no hesitation. He had huge confidence in himself.”

“I have never doubted myself. You have to be mentally prepared, and I am.” (Press conference, November 2022)

“I still have room for improvement, but I want to get close to perfection, maybe even touch it.” (L’Equipe, May 2022)

Ekitike made his Ligue 1 debut against Lorient in October 2020, a few months after his 18th birthday. “He wasn’t completely ready,” admits Guion. “But as I thought he would be important for the future of the club, I accelerated things a bit.”

Guion wanted to keep Ekitike in the second half of that season. Club bosses and the player, though, had other ideas. It was decided that he would go on loan to Vejle, a top-flight team in Denmark. “I needed to experience something different,” Ekitike later told L’Equipe.

“Hugo felt he would get more game time there,” says Guion. “I think he also knew that he wouldn’t be at Reims for long, and that it would also be good to experience life at a club outside France. It was all very clear for him, almost calculated.”

He was not a revelation in Denmark. There were three goals in 11 appearances but he also spent a good amount of time on the bench. When he returned to Reims, there was a new manager and uncertainty over his place in the pecking order.

“He has to improve out of possession, learn to keep the ball better and play more for the team,” was the early assessment of Oscar Garcia, who replaced Guion that summer.

Circumstances conspired in Ekitike’s favour. A spate of injuries pushed him into the team during pre-season and he thrived, scoring five times in friendlies and maintaining the momentum in Ligue 1 with goals against Lyon, Marseille and Rennes.

Garcia, initially sceptical, was won over. “He is tall, fast, mobile, very good one-on-one, holds the ball up well and scores goals,” he tells The Athletic. “You do not find many strikers like him at his age.”

His form led to interest from Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund. Newcastle United almost signed him on deadline day but couldn’t quite get a deal over the line. An injury disrupted his progress in the second half of the season but did not quell the growing interest. “There isn’t a big cub out there who hasn’t enquired about him,” said Reims president Jean-Pierre Caillot.

That summer, after finishing the campaign with 10 goals in Ligue 1, Ekitike moved to PSG. He would be competing with Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Lionel Messi. Asked by Le Parisien whether he might struggle for game time, he gave a typically bullish reply. “The risk never entered into my thinking,” he said. “My football has never let me down.”

“I’m not in football to be just an ordinary player. I tell myself that it would be good to be the best in the world.” (L’Equipe, March 2025)

“I’ve become stronger mentally. I’ve improved as a footballer. But there’s more to come.” (Eintracht Frankfurt website, June 2025)

In the end, the best thing Ekitike did at PSG was leave. Yes, he took home a Ligue 1 winner’s medal at the end of his first season, but the star power he exuded at Reims was nowhere to be seen. The first half of 2023-24, under Luis Enrique, was a flat-out nightmare: one appearance, zero goals. And that was after Messi and Neymar had departed.

Ekitike has said he doesn’t see that time as wasted. “I’m not a person with a lot of regrets,” he told L’Equipe in March. “My errors were necessary.” That final stretch in Paris did, however, threaten to shake his self-belief for the first time in his career.

“Of course you doubt yourself,” he said. “Even now, if I don’t score for a couple of matches, it’s there. So if you don’t play for six months, you can imagine…”

Beyond the mental side, the lack of game time had eroded his fitness. After arriving at Eintracht Frankfurt on loan in February 2024, he made a point of making sure his new team-mates knew that he had been on the sidelines since the summer.

“He was in really bad condition, physically,” says Sebastian Rode, the veteran Eintracht midfielder who retired at the end of that season. “He only had the power to play for five or 10 minutes. I didn’t think that was possible for a 20-year-old.”

The going was tough for Ekitike at the start. Out of shape and lacking rhythm, he struggled to make an impact in the Bundesliga. Newspaper Bild nicknamed him “Mr No Goals” before he finally found the net for the first time in April. Gradually, though, the extra running he did in training began to pay off.

“He needed time to get in shape and get used to our style of play,” says Rode. “When he arrived, he said he couldn’t afford to waste more time like he did in Paris. I was impressed by that. It showed me he was clear about what he wanted to achieve, and that it was just a case of getting up to speed and adapting to German football. He was really motivated to get fit. It took a few months, but he got better and better with every minute he played.”

You will, by now, know the ins and outs of Ekitike’s lift-off season: the goals, the assists, his brilliant partnership with Omar Marmoush, his recalibration as a lone striker after the Egyptian’s move to Manchester City. It is hard to imagine how he could have presented a more compelling case for being ready for another crack at the big time — other than by doing it for longer, perhaps.

“He’s made very, very good progress with us,” Eintracht director of football Markus Krosche said in May. “Things weren’t easy at the start — he arrived in a difficult situation, during a tough season — but the way he has developed has been really impressive. And there is still more to come. I would say he is still only playing at 50 or 60 per cent of his potential.”

For Liverpool, that is an appealing theory. Guion, the man who discovered him, holds a similar view. He regards the Premier League as the ideal finishing school for Ekitike.

“He just has to continue what he’s doing,” Guion says. “He reached a new level last season. I watched him in the Europa League, producing performances of amazing quality. He’s stepped up to that stage and being in England will put the finishing touches on his game. We’re going to see him flourish, especially when he is 25, 26.

“He has it all. And he has enormous belief in himself.”

[BG1973]

Or:

"He has it all. And he has enormous belief in himself.”

[Buzzo]

He looks to the manor born. Can only see him getting better.

[SB]

Yeah he’s such a confident player & full of swagger.

[peterbread]

His little flicks and one touch play linking up and creating attacks is quality. He’s a lot stronger than he looks and his hold up play will create plenty of opportunities to open teams up.

[DerKrampus]

It's worth noting that Nunez is also full of flicks and running, and has scored goals similar to today's. Let's hope that he continues to get better.

[Norbs]

He looks to the manor born. Can only see him getting better.

I never realised the meaning of that phrase until now

[Irishnev]

Only two players have got a goal and assist for Liverpool in their PL debut in the PL era


Hugo and Darwin

Read that last night

[Buzzo]

I never realised the meaning of that phrase until now

I’m not sure I’ve ever used it in my life either

[peterbread]

It’s been a while since we had a forward in that role who could hold the ball up like he can and bring others in to the game. The link up play between the attacking players is showing some great early signs.

[spud_gun]

I see shades of Torres in this lad.

Early days yet

[Scratch]

Nice to see Dan Burn can't bully him.

[peterbread]

We’ve got a pretty good player on our hands in Ekitike. Looks so cool and composed and a lot stronger than his frame would suggest. Great start.

[Buzzo]

3 games 3 goals. Ice cold when he gets a chance. Beautiful finish again today.