Lucca Brughmans Red New £30M Goalie From Genk Due To Arrive In 2027 | OneFootball

In a deal worth around £30 million, put at closer to €35 million by some reports, Liverpool have agreed a deal for the Belgian teenager Lucca Brughmans, which was confirmed at the start of September. As part of the deal, Genk will keep him for the 2026-2027 season, so anyone hoping to see the new goalkeeper in a Red shirt will have to wait for next summer. It is, on the face of it, a large sum of money for a player who had made barely a handful of senior appearances before this month.

Born on the 27th of June 2008, Brughmans already stands at six foot seven inches, which is a frame that has invited comparisons to the production line at Genk that gave Belgian football Thibaut Courtois, Koen Casteels and Maarten Vandevoordt. He spent his early teens in the Netherlands in PSV Eindhoven’s academy, before Genk brought him into their own system. He has represented Belgium at various youth levels, including the Under-17 European Championship and World Cup.

He was eased into Genk’s first team picture last season, racking up nine appearances, before he started each of their opening three league games in the current campaign before the transfer news broke. At the time of writing, he has four appearances this season, getting one clean sheet and a save success rate above 46%. They are decent enough numbers for a goalkeeper who is still finding his feet, rather than being considered the finished article.

Given the fact that Alisson Becker will not be Liverpool’s goalkeeper forever, the club would obviously rather secure a long-term successor now, whilst he can still be signed on reasonable terms, than compete for an established replacement once his stock has risen further. Liverpool are said to have seen off interest from both Arsenal and Real Madrid, which tells you something about how highly he is rated elsewhere.

Whether it pays off is a question for next year at the earliest, but there is obviously no guarantee that it will. For now, Brughmans remains a Genk player, with barely a season and a half of senior football behind him and a considerable jump still to make if he is to be considered a genuine option for the Reds. What Liverpool have really bought themselves, though, is time, with supporters getting the chance to watch a highly rated young goalkeeper develop somewhere else before he is due to start games at Anfield.