Few players are afforded their chance to make an international debut in the heat of a World Cup. And after finding himself shoulder to shoulder alongside Luka Modric during the third-place play-off over in Qatar just over a year ago, the reported Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur target did not miss the opportunity for a quick chat with one of the finest playmakers of the modern era.
“I spoke with Luka Modric on the pitch,” Bilal El Khannouss recalls, via Madrid Universal, his Morocco side eventually finishing fourth behind Croatia.
“And at one point I told him it was hot. He answered me by saying to me; “I am tired, I am 38 years old and you are 18 years old. You have another 20 years to be tired like me!”
Could Tottenham Hotspur sign the next Luka Modric?
Two decades Modric’s junior, El Khannouss is one of those baby-faced talents tipped to fill the void in the post-Modric, Toni Kroos, David Silva era.
The 19-year-old currently plies his trade in Belgium with KRC Genk, but surely not for much longer. Corriere dello Sport claims that Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool are keen, with Genk hoping to bring in a similar fee to the £22 million one Atletico Madrid splashed out to sign fellow teenager Arthur Vermeeren from Royal Antwerp in January.
Vermeeren was named the Jupiler League’s Young Player of the Year after inspiring Antwerp to their first title since 1957 last season. Reporter Filip Joos, however, rates El Khannouss even higher, while bringing up a certain Real Madrid icon again.
“For me, he is the player in the Belgian league who will have the greatest career,” Joos tells the 90Minutes podcast on Sporza. “I don’t see anyone else better than him.
“(El Khannouss) reminds me most of Modric. That does not mean that he will reach that level. (The comparisons are) purely in terms of their styles.
“We have to enjoy him now because, within nine matches, he will be gone from Belgium.”
Bilal El Khannouss looks destined for summer exit
El Khannouss’ departure feels like a case of ‘when’, rather than ‘if’. But what about the ‘where’ of the situation?
Will he follow in Modric’s footsteps at Tottenham? Will he be one of the first new signings in a bold new era at Liverpool, following Jurgen Klopp’s departure?
Or will he take a leaf out of Jude Bellingham’s playbook in the Bundesliga? RB Leipzig have been heavily linked of late, though Sky Sports’ Phillip Hinze is playing down those rumours.
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