Brendan Rodgers tried to sign Philippe Coutinho when the player was just 14, got him at 20 and is now being linked again at 29. Rodgers was youth coach at Chelsea when he first went for the playmaker but he missed out to Inter Milan, where he lured him from for Liverpool.
Brendan Rodgers said: “The money they gained from Philippe has enabled them to buy Van Dijk, Alisson and Fabinho – three players who have transformed the team.”
Coutinho has not quite taken off in the same fashion at Barca. That being said, he has still picked up two La Liga winner’s medals and the Copa del Rey. He was shipped out on loan to Bayern Munich in 2019, where he won the Champions League and Bundesliga, but has missed a big chunk of the campaign on his return to the Nou Camp with a knee injury.
Brendan Rodgers said: “I think if you’ve watched my teams over a period of time you will see I like quick, dynamic, flexibility, rotation, movement, speed, power. That’s the makeup of my teams. When I was looking at the team in the first six months there were certain ingredients that were missing. Philippe was one I knew from my Chelsea days. We tried to get him to Chelsea when he was 14 but he had already committed to Inter Milan. So we talked about him in the summer and kept tabs on him. Then all of a sudden he became available. At 19 we thought ‘Wow. Right let’s get this boy in!’ Most people would have probably looked at him and thought he’s not for the Premier League. But what a talent. He intimidates people when he has the ball with his quality.”
There was a nice line too that would be nice if it came true.
Brendan Rodgers said: “This boy is top, and if he comes back to the league he will show that he’s world class.”
