Wilmar Barrios has admitted to ESPN that he missed out on the chance to join Tottenham Hotspur and Everton in the Premier League, with the Colombian international now enhancing his reputation with Zenit St Petersburg instead.
Not so long ago, barely a day went by without the South American’s name appearing in a gossip column somewhere in Europe.
A tough-tackling dynamo of a midfielder who had shot to fame with Boca Juniors in Argentina, Barrios was ready to take a big step forward in his career heading towards the summer of 2019.
And two clubs on English shores were willing to put their faith in an unproven talent, with a giant heart and even bigger lungs.
In quotes translated by Futbol Red, Barrios suggests that he had been headhunted by Everton to fill an Idrissa Gana Gueye-shaped void at Goodison Park.
“The idea was Everton, there had been talk (regarding a move to the Toffees),” says a player who had an affordable £14.5m release clause in his Boca contract, adding that a move to Spurs was also an option.
“The Tottenham thing, there was talk about the possibility of them selling one of the ones that were there.
“At Everton they had to sell (Gueye). He was going to go to PSG, and in the end he left. I kept calm at that time, until the last day of the European market.”
With Tottenham investing their time and plenty of Daniel Levy’s pennies into a club-record deal for Tanguy Ndombele instead, a man who shone at last summer’s Copa America for Colombia was forced to try his hand in Russian football instead.
While Ndombele hasn’t exactly set the world alight at Spurs, the man who eventually replaced Gueye at Everton has endured a season to forget too. Jean-Philippe Gbamin has been missing since August with a serious hamstring injury.
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