Liverpool’s hit rate for transfers wasn’t always so close to perfect, believe it or not.
Those fans who remember the days before Jurgen Klopp and the great revolution may still have nightmares of Brendan Rodgers’ three envelopes stunt and the signing of Mario Balotelli.
Sadly, the mercurial Italian wasn’t the Northern Irishman’s only transfer misstep – far from it!
The former Jose Mourinho understudy once hailed ‘big talent’ Tiago Illori and Mamadou Sakho as the future of the Reds’ backline.
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How did that work out for Liverpool?
The Frenchman was thrown out of the club quicker than you could say ‘tschüss tschüss’ under Jurgen Klopp.
A similar fate befell the former Sporting CP star who admitted some regret over his hasty decision-making when leaving Portugal.
“I was negotiating a new contract with Sporting at the time, I had the equivalent of a youth team contract at the time, they were trying to adjust that,” the now 30-year-old was quoted as saying by the Echo.
“The club had some financial problems as well and we couldn’t come to an agreement at the time. There was a change of president at the club as well, so he had his ideas about how to get things done – there was a lot going on at the time.
“Then there was some interest from abroad and Liverpool showed more interest than anyone else. I broke my hand so I didn’t have a pre-season at Sporting, then I seem to have been punished for not signing a deal. Being young and stupid really, I reacted. I was willing to sign the deal, but then I was thinking if they were treating me like this then I wanted to leave.
“Looking back now, I think it would have done me good staying another season. It was easy playing there, I was comfortable, they knew me and they knew what I was about. I was a young 19-year-old in the sense that, football-wise, I hadn’t played many games at a professional level. And from there to playing for Liverpool was a big step.
“It’s not that I couldn’t do it, but looking back now, maybe after another full season in Portugal and I would have gone into the next season with some confidence from the campaign before. Hopefully I’d have been able to get 20-30 games in at least, then that would have been different for me.”
Where is Illori now?
What a shame indeed that Illori didn’t consider staying in Portugal a year longer.
That has to be a major regret when looking back on a career that has culminated with a move to Belenenses.
Did he imagine that he’d be playing out his peak years in the Portuguese second division after securing a move to Liverpool?
We’d imagine not and it’s a huge shame, truth be told.