“I even visited the facilities” – Winger talks about regret at snubbing Liverpool move

With eyes all over Europe, Liverpool remain a very active club on the transfer market, whether it be for first-team players or to bolster their academy.

The Premier League club are known to snap up talent from all over the world if they deem them good enough, which is what they wanted to do with Anil Koç back in 2011.

Then 16, the now 25-year-old was at Anderlecht in the youth teams, and had the chance to move to Anfield, revealing as much in an interview with Walfoot.

Talking about his career to date, the Kasimpasa winger, who joined the Turkish side in January from Altinordu, opened up about his decision to snub the Reds in favour of Standard Liège.

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He said: “Everything was in place for me to pierce through there and succeed, but Guy Luzon didn’t count on me. I was put to one side and sent to Charlton. It was tough mentally because you wonder what’s going on. Then, you come back and the manager hasn’t changed his mind and hop, you’re off to Sint-Truiden in the second-tier, which is when you tell yourself you could have been playing for Liverpool.

“Yes, I could have joined the Reds. I even visited the facilities, but Standard and Luciano D’Onofrio knocked on my door with a good career plan and I finally stayed in Belgium. I doubted myself during that complicated period, and wanted to leave Belgium to find myself again.”

When his contract with the Jupiler Pro League side ran out, Koç moved to FC Eindhoven in Holland on a free before, a year later, going to Turkey at Antalyaspor.

Once that ended, he spent seven months without a club until Atlantas in Lithuania gave him a chance to kick things off again.

The moves to Altinordu and Kasimpasa then followed.