Scottish Premiership champions Celtic were keen to bring Real Madrid talent Mariano Diaz to Parkhead before he went to Ligue 1 with Lyon.
Real Madrid fans might have spent the season wondering why they let Alvaro Morata go as Karim Benzema squanders chance after chance while the Bernabau boos ring out.
Forget Morata, however, his struggles at Chelsea pale in comparison to the remarkable debut campaign Mariano Diaz is enjoying in Lyon. Like Morata, Mariano left Madrid last summer in search of more regular first-team football and he has not been disappointed.
The 24-year-old, who made just eight substitute La Liga appearances for Zinedine Zidane’s side en route to the La Liga title in 2016/17, has 28 Ligue 1 starts to his name already for Lyon.
And, in that time, he has scored a quite astonishing 16 goals. So Celtic, who were looking to bring in Mariano last summer before he completed that £7 million move to the Parc OL, may be thinking that they missed out on a gem.
And they would be right. Mariano remains a raw talent with plenty of rough edges but he already looks a complete centre-forward blessed with pace, power, a fearsome strike and an aerial presence that would make Cristiano Ronaldo proud.
In fact, the best way to sum up Mariano’s success at Lyon is this: he has scored more goals in Ligue 1 this season (16) than both of Celtic’s first choice strikers, Mousa Dembele and Leigh Griffiths, have managed between them this season (15).
So the Hoops will be hoping that Odsonne Edouard, the PSG loanee they can sign for a similar £7 million club-record fee according to the Mail, will one day prove to be equally prolific.
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