Liverpool missed a trick here
Fans of Liverpool were delighted this week when the club secured the signing of AS Roma and Brazil number one Alisson Becker.
The 25-year-old had impressed hugely during his time at the Stadio Olimpico and was said to be on the radar of Real Madrid and Chelsea, as well as Jurgen Klopp’s side.
While Loris Karius had made a push for the number one jersey at Anfield towards the end of last season, his two glaring errors in May’s Champions League final defeat to Real Madrid confirmed what many had thought: he is not good enough to be the starting goalkeeper for a side with ambitions of challenging for titles.
Those mistakes appeared to push Jurgen Klopp’s hand to make a firm push to sign Alisson, and the club did so after agreeing a £67 million fee with Roma to secure the transfer.
The signing has been widely welcomed at Anfield, and applauded elsewhere for what it is: a club recognising an area of weakness within its first team and fixing it by adding a player of immense quality.
While that delight won’t wear off easy, there may be a tinge of regret on Merseyside after it emerged that the club had actually been given the chance to sign Alisson as far back as 2015.
According to a report in the Irish Mirror, Liverpool were one of many Premier League and Championship clubs sent dossiers about the goalkeeper, who at the time had been described by Brazilian legend Claudio Taffarel as the best young goalkeeper to come out of South America.
At the time Alisson was goalkeeper for Brazilian Serie A side Internacional, and would go on to make his international debut against Venezuela on October 13, 2015 in a 3-1 win.
Despite the glowing appraisals and the fact that England was his preferred destination, no English club opted to sign him and he eventually signed for Roma in 2016.
He would have cost just £3.1m, with £900,000 in add-ons, quite a lot less than the £67 million spent. That’s quite a big difference, though one suspects that if the Brazilian succeeds in ending the club’s goalkeeping issues, no one will really care.
