Samuel Martínez is set to become a Liverpool player after the English club reached a ready agreement to buy the Colombian forward, who has not yet made his professional debut for Atlético Nacional. The deal is for five seasons, and he is expected to join Liverpool’s academy when he reaches majority age.
Liverpool will pay one million euros for Samuel Martínez, a price that reflects how early the move has come in his career. Transfermarkt summed up the latest step in the chase with one line: “Samuel Martínez será jugador de Liverpool.”
The move lands after at least nine elite clubs showed interest in Martínez following the Under-17 World Cup, with Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham all among the names linked to him. For Liverpool, the agreement secures a player still at the start of his career; for the teenager, it locks in a path to English football before he has played a senior minute in Colombia.
Martínez remains a youth player with only Under-17 experience in Colombia, and that is part of what makes the transfer notable. The reported fee has been described as low relative to his projected potential, which helps explain why so many major clubs entered the race. Liverpool was not alone in seeing the upside, but it moved quickly enough to settle the deal before the competition could pull it apart.
That tension is the story now: Martínez is being bought as a future first-team prospect, yet his first senior appearance for Atlético Nacional is still expected only in the second half of 2026. Until then, Liverpool will own the rights to a player whose reputation has grown faster than his match record, and the club’s academy will be the place where that promise is tested.
