By Mark Finlay
Some of the squad’s familiar names will be rested when Liverpool travel to Switzerland on Thursday to face Young Boys Berne in Liverpool’s opening Europa League Group match.
Manager Brendan Rodgers has decided to leave home captain Steven Gerrard, Goalkeeper Pepe Reina, and striker Luis Suarez ahead of this weekend’s home game against rivals Manchester United.
In their place the manager is bringing in new-boy Samed Yesil for his Liverpool debut, along with 19-year-old Spaniard Suso.
Also included for the trip are Andre Wisdom a 19-year-old centre-back, and Ossama Asaidi a 24-year-old Moroccan winger that we acquired in the summer for £2 million.
The man to watch though is the 18-year-old German striker Yesil who we bought for £1million from Sami Hyypia’s Bayern Leverkusen last month.
Yesil was an all-out goal scorer while playing for the Leverkusen youth side earning the nickname “Gerd” after the prolific Bayer Munich striker Gerd Muller.
The youngster had attracted a lot of attention last summer from some of Europe’s top clubs after netting six goals in last year’s FIFA under 17 World Cup.
Former Liverpool defender Hyypia is thought to have been instrumental in getting the young striker to move to Merseyside.
Manager Brendan Rodgers had originally said that it would be two years before Yesil would feature in the full side, but now with the loss of Andy Carroll on loan to West Ham, and no other strikers available the youngster has been called up for first team action.
Rodgers thinks that all of Liverpool’s youngsters have been in awe of Raheed Sterling’s rise to the top, and would like to emulate the 17-year-old.
When talking about Yesil Rodgers said: “Yesil will certainly be fast-tracked, and he will be involved in the Europa League game”.
“I watched him play against England Under-19s during the international break and he scored two terrific goals and set up another.”
“The biggest thing for young players now is that the introduction of Raheem has given even the seven and eight year’s olds the one thing in life you want – hope,” added Rodgers.
“Every young Academy player, every parent or guardian has got hope that a young player will play at Liverpool.
“I saw it last week after moving a lot of the young players up to Melwood with it being international week. You could see it in their attitude. They had a spring in their step.
“They feel that they have got a chance and they will get that. There is nothing better than when you see a young kid come through.
There will be that chance for Yesil and one or two other boys over these period of months now.”
