Milos Kerkez: From Viral Wedding Rumors to Liverpool's Left-Back Star

Milos Kerkez leans back in his chair on a rooftop in Chicago and laughs. He has been congratulated on his “wedding” all summer – by strangers online, by team‑mates at Liverpool, by staff at the training ground.

There was no wedding.

“No! This is wrong, everyone gets this wrong!” he says, still half‑amused, half‑exasperated. The photo that went viral back home in Vrbas showed Kerkez escorting a bride into church. Serbia assumed its dynamic young left-back had tied the knot.

“It was my oldest brother,” he explains. “In Serbia it is normal for the younger brothers to take the bride to the church. That’s what I did and now everyone thinks I got married. It was Rade, not me.”

He grins.

“I keep having to explain to people that I never got married. I was going around the club when we started back and people were congratulating me. I’m like: ‘No, I’m not ready for this yet!’”

From trucks at 10 to Liverpool’s left flank

Marriage can wait. Responsibility cannot.

Kerkez is 22, energetic, loud, and now right at the heart of Liverpool’s reset. This is the summer he is expected to stop being “the one after Andy Robertson” and start being Liverpool’s left-back in his own right.

He is already acting like it. During Liverpool’s pre-season camp at Chicago Fire’s performance centre, staff have noticed how Kerkez and his Hungary team-mate Dominik Szoboszlai have naturally stepped into leadership roles in what is, suddenly, a young squad.

He did not grow up in an environment that indulges nerves.

“Honestly, I don’t care about pressure,” he says. “I don’t like ‘pressure’ and that stuff. I grew up a bit different in Serbia. We grew up different. You could say maybe we are built a bit different. For example, I started to drive a truck when I was 10 years old.”

He sees the raised eyebrow and clarifies.

“It was with my dad. I climbed in and then I took the wheel. He was doing the pedals, I was only quite small so I couldn’t reach them.”

His father, Sebastijan, still takes the wheel for him sometimes, literally. He and Kerkez’s mother, Tijana, have moved to England to help their son settle into Premier League life and will still drive him to the training ground on occasion.

“They are very important,” Kerkez says. “My brothers have their own lives now but my parents are with me and I am much happier they are with me. My dad is here to smack me sometimes on the top of the head and to remind me. Sometimes you play a few good games and maybe you start to get a bit carried away. But my dad is here to smack me. I come straight back down and I switch straight back on.”

The coach who already knows

If Kerkez sounds comfortable in his surroundings, there is a good reason. He has walked into a new era at Liverpool and found a very familiar face.

The frantic knock on his bedroom door in Serbia came first. Arne Slot had been sacked, just a year after delivering the Premier League title. “I was surprised,” Kerkez admits. “I was back in Serbia, I was sleeping and my brother woke me up. He knocks on my door and it was a big surprise. Nobody knew. I couldn’t believe it, I was like: ‘Wow.’”

They have exchanged messages since. There is no bitterness. Kerkez does not blame Slot for a turbulent campaign in which every solution seemed to trigger a fresh problem. He was part of an expensive recruitment drive that misfired, even if his own contribution stood above several of the other new arrivals.

Then came the twist. Liverpool turned to Andoni Iraola – the coach who had already turned Kerkez into a £40m left-back at Bournemouth and into a member of the PFA team of the year in 2024‑25.

“I was delighted, honestly,” Kerkez says. “He helped me and improved me a lot in the two years I spent with him. I was really happy, obviously for myself but also for the team. Everyone knows what type of football he plays so I think he is the perfect fit for us.”

The smile widens. He knows he does not have to prove himself from scratch to the new man.

“It’s the intensity. He’s not scared to play one-on-one all over the pitch, to press high and to be on the front foot always. If you see footage of how we all are after training, all lying down, then you can see what he is preparing us for. You definitely need legs and good condition for what he wants us to do, but we will be all right.”

Training has already carried Iraola’s trademark edge. The players have been introduced – or reintroduced, in Kerkez’s case – to “consequences”.

“When we play games with three or four teams he calls it ‘consequences’ and the losing team and the team that finishes second has to run,” Kerkez says. “How much you have to run depends on what he decides in that moment, but there is always running for the team that loses.”

Iraola’s personality remains consistent with the coach Kerkez knew on the south coast.

“He’s intense and he likes details. He’s very professional. He likes to talk sometimes but not a lot. I think maybe he doesn’t want to get too close to some players and wants to show that everyone is the same in the team, so he doesn’t want to get too close to anyone in particular. He keeps it professional, with a lot of hard work.”

From Slot’s structure to Iraola’s freedom

There were moments last season when Kerkez looked caged by Slot’s structure. The Dutchman’s insistence on building from the back, on full-backs coming inside, never quite aligned with the version of Kerkez that had torn up the flank at Bournemouth.

It was that version – fast, aggressive, relentless up and down the line – that persuaded Liverpool to buy him. Under Iraola, that player should reappear more often.

“As he explains it: “The gaffer likes to play more with the full-backs down the line, underlapping, overlapping. It worked well for me at Bournemouth, so I think it will also work well for me here.

“He always told me that defending is really important, for him that is first of all, and because you are a full-back you need to defend really hard. Everything you can do in front of you is like a bonus. So I was always focused first on defending and then running forward to help the wingers. He showed me that when you do your job then you are free to do what you want, so I felt really free with him. He lets you be more free to do your stuff.”

That balance – hard, unforgiving defensive work followed by licence to explode forward – suits Kerkez’s game and personality. It also fits Liverpool’s need to evolve without losing their edge.

The early signs on this US tour, which continues against Wrexham in New York on Wednesday after a win over Sunderland in Nashville, suggest Iraola will lean into his old blueprint. High press. One-v-one duels all over the pitch. Full-backs unleashed.

For Kerkez, it feels like being dropped back into his natural habitat.

Stepping out of a legend’s shadow

The shadow on the left side of Liverpool’s defence is enormous and Scottish. Andy Robertson is now at Tottenham, but his legacy at Anfield is everywhere: the silverware, the assists, the endless running.

Kerkez was bought to replace him. That is a job title, not a comparison he is willing to chase.

“We all know what Andy did for the club. I’m not running away from that. I want to make my own way. I’m going to work hard. I know what it means to play for Liverpool. I showed it a bit last year and I am going to show it more this year.”

Robertson helped him long before he left. There were no grand speeches in May when the time came for goodbyes. It was not the moment.

“I didn’t want to get a lot on to him,” Kerkez says. “He was a bit emotional as everything was coming to an end. I didn’t want to get on to him too much, but throughout the year he helped me. We had a few conversations about crosses and about the big lungs we need to have so we can run until tomorrow. He did a lot of seasons, I should also have the same.

“We had conversations like that. Also, where to put the last ball, to focus, to put your head up and sometimes put better crosses in.”

There is another figure in that dressing room who has left an impression: Mohamed Salah, with whom Kerkez became close last season. Before Liverpool flew out from the AXA Training Centre to Chicago, a television graphic caught his eye.

“Before we left the Axa I saw on TV a show about how many goals and assists Mo had, it was something like 380,” he recalls. “I just walked out! ‘What is this?’ I was thinking. Time flies. A new generation comes and hopefully everything will be good.”

Time does move quickly at Liverpool. Managers change, legends depart, the baton passes on almost without warning. One minute you are the promising signing learning the ropes; the next you are expected to lead.

Kerkez has had quite the summer: Serbia, Montenegro, Spain, the shock of Slot’s dismissal, the surprise reunion with Iraola, the mistaken wedding celebrations in Vrbas. Now comes the serious part.

He has his parents nearby to keep him grounded, a coach who already trusts him, a club demanding a response to a season that veered off course, and a left flank that suddenly belongs to him.

The question is no longer whether Milos Kerkez is ready to step out of Andy Robertson’s shadow.

It is how far he can run now that the line in front of him is clear.