A move away from Liverpool helped the international star kickstart his career and earn a Champions League opportunity

When Liverpool take on Villarreal in the Champions League this week, there will be a familiar face in the opposition squad. Peter Gulacsi has been a fixture for the Spanish club this season after joining from RB Leipzig.

However, things could have panned out very differently for the goalkeeper had he been given an opportunity to impress at Liverpool. Gulacsi was in his teens when he moved to Anfield from MTK in his homeland of Hungary.

However, with Pepe Reina's longevity offering few opportunities for his back-ups, he left for pastures new at the age of 23. The stopper's advisor gave Brendan Rodgers a decision to make and the boss decided to let him leave.

It was a difficult position for Gulacsi to find himself in but it's one which ended up panning out well for him. "Rodgers became coach and he also wanted to look at all the goalkeepers first," Gulacsi told Goal in 2021.

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"He wanted to keep me as number three. Pepe was injured a lot again, so I must have been on the bench 15, 16 times. After the season, my advisor at the time spoke to Rodgers.

"He said, 'Peter is now 23 and going into the last year of his contract. There are exactly three paths for him: he leaves the club and becomes the clear number one somewhere, he extends the contract and is loaned out for two years, or the contract is extended and he becomes Liverpool's permanent number two.'

“Rodgers said quite clearly that it will be difficult with the last two options, but they will not put any obstacles in my way.”

Red Bull Salzburg took a chance on Gulacsi despite his senior experience at the time amounting to just 52 games in the EFL and domestic cups during loans at Hereford, Tranmere and Hull. He hit the ground running in Austria, though, prompting sister club RB Leipzig to bring him in as they looked to climb the German pyramid.

He helped the club reach the Bundesliga under Ralf Rangnick and became a locked-in first choice under Ralph Hasenhuttl, eventually landing the captain's armband in 2021. When he left Leipzig at the end of the 2025/26 season, Gulacsi had more than 350 club appearances under his belt.

Three of those appearances came against Liverpool - in the 2020/21 and 2024/25 Champions League campaigns - with all three ending in defeat for Leipzig. He'll hope for a change of fortunes this week, though, with Villarreal on one win and one defeat from their first two European outings.

Despite never getting a competitive opportunity at Anfield, Gulacsi learned a lot from his team-mates and took the positives despite how things ended for him on Merseyside. Training with the likes of Steven Gerrard and Luis Suarez was an experience he told The Athletic he would never forget, while also reserving some praise for Reina.

“We are completely different in terms of build and style," the Hungarian said. "Technically, he was a really strong goalkeeper but what I learned from him especially was having a kind of elite mindset.

“In those six years he missed, I think, maybe a few games. Because he was really, really focused on playing every single game. He was so consistent, never showing any weakness, he was strong all the time. To see that up close was an experience I could really use later in my career.”