How Barcelona Missed The Chance To Sign World Class Darwin Nunez For Just £15m
Barcelona missed the chance to sign Darwin Nunez for as little as £15m after failing to act on a recommendation from Luis Suarez.
Nunez, 22, is set to join Liverpool from Benfica this summer in a deal which could be worth as much as £85m including all potential add-ons.
Should Liverpool pay that fee, Nunez would become the most expensive signing in the club's history - breaking the previous record of £75m paid to Southampton for Virgil van Dijk in 2018.
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While he now looks set to move to Anfield, things could have turned out very differently for Nunez had Barcelona listened to Suarez.
The former Barcelona and Liverpool striker says he recommended Nunez to the Catalan club when his fellow Uruguay international was playing at Almeria prior to his move to Benfica.
However, Suarez was unable to convince Barcelona to make a move for the young striker.
"When [Nunez] was at Almeria, I told Barcelona about him," Suarez told Spanish journalist Gerard Romero in 2021.
"They asked me and I said, 'Keep an eye on this one, he's got something interesting about him...'
"But they replied 'No, he's in Almeria, he's too young.'
"But instead of now having to pay £80m, £90m or £100m, they would have paid £15m or £20m for him back then."
Barcelona's loss was of course Benfica's gain, with Nunez going on to score 47 goals in 84 games for the Portuguese club after joining in a club-record €24m (£20.6m) move from Almeria in 2020.
He now looks set to move to Liverpool, with the striker arriving on Merseyside on Tuesday to complete the transfer.
Liverpool fans are understandably excited by his arrival, with Nunez's former coach, Leonardo Ramos, describing the striker as a mix between Suarez and another Uruguayan great, Edinson Cavani.
"He has a similar style to Cavani, but it seems to me that Darwin is faster and more powerful," Ramos told La Pagina.
"He is much more explosive and apart from that explosiveness he obviously showed incredible goalscoring ability. He has two parts, he is half and half between Suarez and Cavani.
"He has the power that Suarez had to go for it all, to go to the clash and fight with the rival. And he also has the part of Cavani, of being a much more athletic player, more physical, more intelligent.
"I think he is a union of those two things."
Topics: Darwin Nunez, Football, Premier League, Transfers, Benfica, Luis Suarez
Rory O'Callaghan