A familiar face returned to action in Germany this weekend, bringing smiles to many Liverpool fans \u2013 even if he\u2019s no longer wearing red.<\/p>\n
Ozan Kabak makes emotional return in Hoffenheim victory
\nFormer Liverpool defender Ozan Kabak made his long-awaited comeback for TSG Hoffenheim in their 3\u20130 Bundesliga win over FC St. Pauli, his first competitive outing since suffering a cruciate ligament tear in June 2024.<\/p>\n
According to Hoffenheim\u2019s official website, the 25-year-old Turkish international came on in the 86th minute, capping off a hard-fought recovery that kept him sidelined for the entire 2024\/25 campaign. The club described it as a \u201cperfect Sunday,\u201d with Kabak\u2019s late appearance following goals from Bazoumana Toure, Andrej Kramaric, and Grischa Promel.<\/p>\n
The serious knee injury had come at a pivotal point in Kabak\u2019s career, sustained while representing Turkey in a pre-Euro 2024 friendly against Italy.<\/p>\n
Liverpool fans will remember Kabak from the 2020\/21 season, when defensive injuries forced Jurgen Klopp to bring him in on loan from Schalke. He went on to make 13 appearances and played a key role in stabilizing the backline during a chaotic campaign.<\/p>\n
There was even a chance for a permanent transfer that summer, with reports suggesting Liverpool turned down the opportunity to sign him for just \u00a38.5 million despite Schalke\u2019s financial troubles.<\/p>\n
Since then, Kabak has rebuilt his career at Hoffenheim, though his progress was halted by last year\u2019s ACL injury. His return now represents a major personal achievement \u2014 and few will begrudge him the joy of stepping back onto the pitch.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always heartening to see a former Red thriving again, and after all Kabak has endured, Sunday\u2019s brief appearance will have felt like a victory of its own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A familiar face returned to action in Germany this weekend, bringing smiles to many Liverpool fans \u2013 even if he\u2019s no longer wearing red. Ozan Kabak makes emotional return in Hoffenheim victory Former Liverpool defender Ozan Kabak made his long-awaited comeback for TSG Hoffenheim in their 3\u20130 Bundesliga win over FC St. Pauli, his first …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":52520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/EOTK-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-2-13-768x432.jpg.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52521,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52519\/revisions\/52521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}