MILOS KERKEZ is raising his pet Rottweiler Maximus on a diet of raw meat.
Nobody at Liverpool’s training ground should be surprised if their new £40million star asks for some himself as part of his pre-match meal over the next few months.
Left-back Kerkez was a self-confessed wild child, difficult to deal with as mum Tijana and dad Sebastijan struggled to keep him on a tight leash.
He freely admits: “I was a little bit tough growing up.”
Kerkez, who is heading to Anfield from Bournemouth, would think nothing of coming home after playing football in the streets of the Serbian town of Vrbas, with blocks of stone for goalposts as blood seeped from his grazed arms and legs.
The games were with his older brothers Rade and Marko, the latter is also a left-back and plays for Greek side Aris Thessaloniki.
Milos revealed: “They were tough on me. They would tackle me, I would fall, my skin would cut and bleed but they were good times and I realised: ‘I like to do this!’”
When news broke this week that the 21- year-old’s move from the Cherries was going through, his sibling Marko, 24, posted a picture of a little boy facing an image of Anfield wearing a red shirt with “Kerkez” and the No 3 on his back.
He accompanied the picture with the words: “Dreams come true when you believe more in your vision than in your fears.”
Not that the Serbia-born full-back ever seems to have been that fearful of anyone or anything.
Kerkez is already playing in the sixth country of his career but there is nothing he likes better than to head into the Serbian wilderness on his own to live in a wooden cabin, catching fish then cooking them on a fire.
His ambition is to build a bigger farm for his father, saying: “He loves to spend his whole day on the farm, with the dogs, ducks, fishes . . . in the wild.
“I’m going to build him a new one, hopefully soon, with more animals. I want horses, cows, dogs, everything.
“I want to have a big space, so when I go there, I can just disconnect from football.
“I want to build a lake, fill it up with fish so then I can fish all day. It’s an idea from my dad but we have to make a plan now.”
He was just 11 when he left his parents and youth team OFK Vrbas to head to Austria for Rapid Vienna in 2014.
In 2019 he joined Hungarian division two side Gyor, where he decided he would play for that country despite being born in Serbia, a decision backed by his dad and grandmother who was a Magyar.
In February 2021 the great Paolo Maldini, AC Milan’s sporting director, recognised Kerkez had an animal-like passion to devour yards down the left flank and crash into tackles and invited him to join the Italian super club.
Kerkez said: “You know, when Maldini calls, you don’t think too much.”
Maldini flew to Hungary in a private plane to take Kerkez to Italy where he would become a team-mate of Swedish legend Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Yet he never played a minute for Milan and, after a short spell at Dutch side AZ, found himself at Bournemouth.
After his international debut in a 1-0 win over a Germany side containing striker Thomas Muller, he said: “I didn’t care that I was up against Muller.
“I never cared who the opponent was. Zlatan could have come. I wouldn’t have been scared either.”
Kerkez also owns an Italian mastiff in Serbia and is called Had. He explained: “The name is after Hades, the God of the underworld.”
Kop boss Arne Slot will fancy him to wreak hell on opponents over the coming years.
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