Explained: Why Ngumoha doesn’t count as an underage player in Liverpool’s Champions League squad | OneFootball

After playing just two competitive first-team games for Liverpool, Rio Ngumoha has been named in the Reds’ squad for this season’s Champions League.

The 22-man list named by Arne Slot for the league phase of the tournament was revealed on Wednesday evening, with Federico Chiesa the standout omission due to a limit on the number of ‘non-homegrown’ players who can be included.

Despite the aforementioned Ngumoha being English and having just turned 17, one of those ‘non-homegrown’ berths had to be assigned to him.

Why does Ngumoha not count as an underage player by UEFA?

As explained on UEFA.com, clubs can submit a ‘List B’ of players born on or after 1 January 2004, but only if they’ve been with that club for ‘any uninterrupted period of two years, or a total of three consecutive years with a maximum of one loan period to a club from the same association for a period not longer than one year’.

Players aged 16 ‘may be submitted if they have been registered with the club for the previous two years without interruption’.

(Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)

It was only 12 months ago that Ngumoha joined Liverpool from Chelsea’s academy, hence why he can’t be included in ‘List B’, which is independent of the main squad (in which a maximum of 25 players cane be named) and has no limit on the number of players it can contain.

That explains why, in order for Arne Slot to include him for the Reds’ Champions League fixtures between now and the end of January, the teenager had to be named in the primary squad and wasn’t eligible to be classified among the minimum of eight ‘locally-trained’ players.

A huge show of faith by Slot in Ngumoha

Although it’s tough on Chiesa to be the one senior player to miss out, it’s a huge show of faith in Ngumoha that our head coach is serious about giving him game-time in Europe’s premier club competition despite his lack of experience at the top level.

However, as he showed with his incredible impact off the bench against Newcastle last week, the 17-year-old seems to embrace the big occasion rather than being intimidated by it, a fearlessness which’ll serve him well if he is entrusted to play in the Champions League over the next few months.

Just imagine if the kid who was given his senior debut against Accrington Stanley in January goes on to score the winner against Real Madrid less than a year later!