Former Barcelona starlet Alen Halilovic admits that ‘Tottenham Hotspur wanted to buy me’ after the Premier League giants sold Gareth Bale to Real Madrid in a world-record deal a decade ago.
At the age of 27, the sight of Alen Halilovic spending what should be his prime years in the Eredivisie with a mid-table Fortuna Sittard outfit may have the critics mourning another one-time wonderkid lost to the game.
But, while it’s true that Halilovic did not fulfil his vast and undoubted potential, there is something rather heart-warming about such a naturally-talented footballer taking on a talismanic role away from the glare and the pressure. The well-travelled journeyman has found a loving home at last, strutting his stuff im Sittard with the swagger and the skill which once drew comparisons to Lionel Messi and Croatia legend Luke Modric.
Tottenham missed out on Alen Halilovic to Barcelona
Halilovic could have followed in Modric’s footsteps at Tottenham Hotspur, explaining that he turned down a move to London in favour of a Barcelona side who seemed perfectly suited to making the most of the teenager’s dazzling skillset.
“Tottenham wanted to buy me,” Halilovic recalls, speaking to The Athletic about his switch from Dinamo Zagreb to the Camp Nou in 2014.
“But Barcelona was my style. They were about possession and the ball at your feet. The first year I was to play Barca B, then they would loan me to La Liga and in the third year they would decide.”
Zdravko Mamic, the former Dinamo Zagreb president, claims to have met with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy a decade ago. Only Halilovic’s father, Mamic said, scuppered Tottenham’s hopes of striking a £20 million double-deal for Croatian starlets Halilovic and Tin Jedvaj following Gareth Bale’s switch to Real Madrid.
‘Tottenham didn’t want me in the first-team’
“That is totally not true,” Halilovic retorts. “My dad did not put any pressure on me. At that time, he thought (Barcelona) was the best step for me. At 16 and only playing the Croatian league, England was too tough. Tottenham didn’t want me in the first-team, but they didn’t have a clear plan.
“The first two years were perfect at Barca, but I expected I would get a chance at the first team in the third. Then I realised Luis Enrique did not see me there.”
Halilovic, after making only one first-team appearance at Barca, had spells at AC Milan, Standard Liege, Birmingham City and Reading before moving to the Netherlands. Jedvaj, meanwhile, is currently on loan at Panathinaikos from Lokomotiv Moscow.
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