Most Liverpool enthusiasts would have been pardoned if they had only heard of Darwin Nunez when the Benfica attacker found the net against the Reds in the Champions League quarter-final earlier this season.
‘I requested that Barca sign him, but they declined’: How Barcelona squandered a £15 million opportunity to recruit Darwin Nunez.
However, even prior his departure to Benfica, ex-Red Luis Suarez was well aware of his fellow Uruguans’ abilities.
“I alerted Barcelona about [Nunez] while he was at Almeria,” Suarez, who played for the Catalans at the time, said in a 2021 interview with journalist Gerard Romero.
“‘Keep an eye on this one, he’s got something fascinating about him…’ I told them.
“‘No, he’s in Almeria, he’s rather immature,’ they said.
“And they’d have paid £15m or £20m for him before then rather than £80m, £90m, or £100m now.”
Nunez netted 16 goals in his lone season with Almeria in Spain’s second tier before joining Benfica for slightly over £20 million in 2020.
Nunez moves to Liverpool for a club-record price, including all add-ons, two years later.
