{"id":631419,"date":"2026-08-11T10:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T10:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/631419\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T10:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T10:00:19","slug":"ronald-araujo-provides-fitness-update-ahead-of-como-double-header","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/631419\/","title":{"rendered":"Ronald Araujo provides fitness update ahead of Como double-header"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool have completed the signing of Ronald Araujo on a season-long loan from Barcelona<\/a>, with the Uruguay international expected to provide much-needed quality and experience in defence.<\/p>\n

Araujo, who was named Barcelona captain in January, has taken a pay cut to facilitate the move<\/a> and will join Liverpool\u2019s first-team training later this week.<\/p>\n

Andoni Iraola\u2019s side will not pay a loan fee but have an option to sign the 27-year-old permanently next summer for around \u00a347million.<\/p>\n

Araujo can play at centre-back or right-back, offering valuable versatility with Giovanni Leoni and Jeremy Jacquet short of fitness, Conor Bradley recovering from a knee injury and Joe Gomez set to miss the start of the season with a muscle problem.<\/a><\/p>\n

Araujo completed his medical at Liverpool\u2019s AXA Training Centre on Monday and could feature against Como on Sunday. Araujo missed the 2026 FIFA World Cup after suffering an injury in training before the tournament.<\/p>\n

The defender failed to recover in time and did not make a single appearance for Uruguay. He has now provided an update on his fitness and revealed how ready he is for the new season.<\/p>\n

Araujo told Liverpoolfc.com<\/a>: \u201cOff the back of the World Cup, I had two weeks\u2019 break but since then I\u2019ve been in pre-season training with Barcelona and, to be fair, that\u2019s been a decent pace and rhythm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling good at the moment, I\u2019m feeling in shape. Obviously, we\u2019ve still got almost a couple of weeks now before the league season starts here at Liverpool. That\u2019s what we\u2019re working for. I think I\u2019ll be ready, I think I\u2019ll be in good physical shape to be ready to make a start.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWithout a shadow of a doubt, the aim is to win trophies, win things. You come to a club like Liverpool, Liverpool is a team that is competing on all levels for all trophies, so we need to be battling it out on all fronts.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou aim high at a club like this \u2013 that\u2019s what we\u2019ll all be doing. That\u2019s the main aim of the players and I\u2019m sure it is of everyone at the club and the supporters as well. As well as aiming high, I\u2019ll be giving everything that I can out there on the pitch to try to make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool have completed the signing of Ronald Araujo on a season-long loan from Barcelona, with the Uruguay international…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,266818,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,265216,7,8],"class_list":["post-631419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-como","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-ronald-araujo","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117076297491593155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}