Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk were left in awe of Liverpool youngster Marcelo Pitaluga during training yesterday.
Pitaluga looks like he could be set for a loan in the coming days, having spent a portion of last year away from Anfield.
And judging by a clip posted by Liverpool’s official Twitter page today, whoever gets him will have themselves a real talent.
Taking part in a two-touch shooting drill, Pitaluga has the daunting task of facing up to the Reds captain and star forward. But Marcelo takes it in his stride, first diving to his right to tip a bending Van Djik effort round the post.
“Oh what a save!” gushes the Dutchman. “By the young [Claudio] Taffarel.”
Next up is Salah, who takes a perfect touch on his right foot to set up a trademark left-footed bender towards the far corner. But Pitaluga is equal to it, stretching magnificently to turn the strike onto the crossbar.
“Marcelo!” says Mo, with faux-outrage and a wave of the arm. “Marcelo, you been in the gym with Andy [head of fitness Andreas Kornmayer] before or what?!”
It feels like Liverpool have been prepping Pitaluga to take his place in the first team squad for quite some time.
The 20-year-old did well out on-loan last year, but was playing at non-league level. After an injury forced him to return to Liverpool mid-season, he needs game time now.
As a result, it would be nice to see another loan lined up for the Brazilian.
There’s no chance he’s getting in ahead of Alisson Becker or Caoimhin Kelleher right now, and it’s likely that having signed a new deal, Adrian is also still ahead of Pitaluga.
At 20, he’s still obviously very young for a goalkeeper. But as Kelleher can attest, those years start to creep up quickly. The Irishman perhaps wishes he’d had a loan himself somewhere along the way.
Quite what level that loan should be at for Pitaluga isn’t certain. He’s clearly a very talented young ‘keeper who has the respect of his much older teammates. But you don’t want to send him out too early and run the risk of losing his confidence.
Either way, we’re sure that Liverpool will have a plan here. The feeling seems to be that when Alisson and Kelleher do eventually move on, Pitaluga has been earmarked to be right amongst it. In Ali’s case especially, we hope that isn’t for a while. But in the meantime, keep up the good work, Marcelo!
