Former Barcelona chief Ramon Planes has revealed he told Tottenham to sign Marco Asensio before he joined Real Madrid in 2015.
Asensio signed for the Spanish giants in a £3.51m deal in July 2015 and, following a year on loan with Espanyol that year, moved to the first team in 2016.
He’s been a regular in the first-team squad since then, going on to make 221 appearances for the club, scoring 46 goals and 23 assists.
He was once considered one of the hottest talents in Spanish football and remains a highly thought of player to this day at the age of 26.
His time at the Santiago Bernabeu has been a highly successful one, to say the least, with two La Liga titles, two Supercopa de Espana titles, two Champions Leagues, Club World Cup’s and one UEFA Super Cup to his name.
He’s long been linked with a move to the Premier League, with the likes of Arsenal, Everton and Liverpool all named as potential destinations down the years.
It seems things could have been very different for him, though, with Planes revealing he told his superiors at Tottenham to sign him during his year as Spurs’ sporting director.
“I watched a Zaragoza-Mallorca game and was amazed by a player called Marco Asensio,” Mundo Deportivo report him saying.
“And in the same car park at La Romareda, I called my superiors at Tottenham to tell them that he had to be signed (he instead signed for Real Madrid in 2014).
“In view of the experience, I wanted to speed up the signing of Pedri so that the same thing didn’t happen to me.”
