It is four years since Liverpool and Tottenham were said to be fighting over Ante Coric.
The soaraway success of Ballon d’Or winner Luka Modric has proved a burden for a few Croatian talents over the years. Much like Argentine footballers have suffered with the ‘next Maradona’ syndrome for years, before Lionel Messi finally emerged.
One of the players dubbed ‘the next Modric’ was bright prospect Ante Coric.
Four years ago The Mirror reported how both Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool were in hot pursuit of the playmaker, who was part of his country’s Euro 2016 squad.
Manchester City had attempted to sign him too, but Coric was not impressed with their plans to loan him out.
Coric even told Croatian newspaper Sportske Jutarni in 2017 that he had expected to be at Liverpool, so hard had he fallen for the rumours.
Eventually it was Roma who took the plunge on signing Coric from Dinamo Zagreb.
Coric’s move went through in 2018, for a fraction of the price Zagreb had tried to hold out for. As their youngest ever goalscorer in Europe at the time, they didn’t want to sell him on the cheap – but eventually they could hold him back no more.
Roma’s move came around the time of multiple investments in young talents, following Antonio Sanabria and Ezequiel Ponce.
Like those two South Americans, Coric’s move has not worked out at all.
He has played a total of 48 minutes of football for Roma since joining, and this season he was loaned out to Spanish side Almeria.
Coric has played more, with four starts and eight substitute appearances adding up to 597 minutes of playing time.
Worryingly though, he has no goals, and while he does have three assists, it’s not been enough to make Almeria want to push the boat out to sign him permanently.
TMW report they see a proposed fee of £5 million as too expensive, and would like to re-negotiate a cheaper deal.
The good news for Coric is that he is only 23, and has time to kick on, but a move to the Premier League looks further away than ever.
Perhaps under the guidance of a Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp or Mauricio Pochettino he could have developed into the top star he was supposed to be.
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