Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool offered Carlos Zambrano the chance to swap the Bundesliga for the Premier League – but a move to Anfield never happened.
Boca Juniors defender Carlos Zambrano has admitted that he was a ‘stone’s throw’ away from joining Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, speaking in an Instagram Q&A.
In the summer of July 2016, a Peruvian international who had established himself as one of the Bundesliga’s most reliable centre-halves at Eintracht Frankfurt was packing his bags and swapping Germany’s commercial district for cold Kazan.
Rubin paid a bargain £2.5 million to bring Zambrano to Russia – but only after he had turned down a once-in-a-lifetime chance to join Liverpool instead.
“A stone’s throw away,” Zambrano says when asked how close he came to moving to Anfield, explaining that he decided against leaving a Frankfurt side who were battling relegation at the time.
“There are decisions you make, and you regret them. But I had to keep my promise.”
The former Schalke, Dinamo Kiev and St Pauli stopper is now back in South America, joining Argentine giants Boca Juniors recently as he enters the autumn of his career at the age of 30.
Liverpool would go on to sign another Bundesliga centre-back instead in the shape of Joel Matip. And with the Cameroon international set to add a Premier League medal to last year’s Champions League glory, Matip will go down as one of the best bargain signings in the club’s history.
Oh what could have been, hey Zambrano?
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