Yokohama F. Marinos 1-3 Liverpool: Wirtz gets off the mark in Japan

Florian Wirtz scored his first goal for Liverpool as the Premier League champions beat Yokohama F. Marinos 3-1 in a friendly, which also saw Hugo Ekitike's debut for the Reds.

Liverpool rounded off their pre-season tour of Asia with a victory in front of a capacity crowd at Nissan Stadium, though they had to come from behind in the second half.

Arne Slot named a strong starting lineup but his team failed to find the breakthrough in the first half, with Cody Gakpo striking the post and Dominik Szoboszlai just failing to finish following a sublime pass from Mohamed Salah.

Ekitike – who recently arrived from Eintracht Frankfurt in a deal worth up to £79m (€91m) – was withdrawn at the break and Liverpool fell behind to a low drive from Asahi Uenaka in the 55th minute.

However, they were only behind for seven minutes as Wirtz fired home to cap a brilliant counter-attack led by Salah, and fellow new signing Jeremie Frimpong teed up Trey Nyoni to make it 2-1 five minutes later.

Sixteen-year-old Rio Ngumoha then added some gloss with his second goal of pre-season, skipping inside a challenge on the edge of the box before finding the bottom-right corner.

Data Debrief: First of many for Wirtz?

Wirtz played 45 minutes in Liverpool's 4-2 defeat to AC Milan on Saturday, and he got 64 minutes on Wednesday before being withdrawn.

His final touch of the game was his best as he capitalised on Curtis Jones' dummy to sweep home, scoring what Liverpool fans hope will be the first of many goals in Red.

He scored 16 Bundesliga goals last season while providing 14 assists, with only Patrik Schick (27) bettering that former tally among Bayer Leverkusen players.