Swapping Anderlecht for AS Monaco in 2018, Eliot Matazo is only now starting to reap the benefits of his patience, slowly being used more and more by Philippe Clément.
He has five appearances to his name with the principality side this season, following 28 in the last campaign, and is often called up to the Belgium U21 squad, with whom he has five caps.
His career, however, could have been very different, as the player had offers to move to Manchester United and Manchester City at one point.
This comes courtesy to RTBF, who reveal the name of the clubs who wanted him during an interview with the 20-year-old.
It’s no secret that Manchester United enjoy scouting in Belgium, as they have a past history of picking up talent there, with the likes of Adnan Januzaj and Marnick Vermijl making their way from Anderlecht and Standard Liège respectively into the Red Devils’ youth teams.
All have enjoyed varying degrees of success following their moves, and Matazo could have followed them, such were his performances with Anderlecht at a young age.
He said: “Vincent Kompany and his project? Hard to say if I would have stayed if the case had arisen. The past is the past, but it’s true, I had offers from everywhere (editor’s note: Manchester City and United, Bayern Munich, Juventus…) and that’s thanks to all the tournaments we played… and won with Anderlecht.”
Why he decided against swapping to either Old Trafford or the Etihad isn’t said, but perhaps he felt he had more room to grow and a better chance of playing first-team football at AS Monaco when he chose to go there.
Either way, he doesn’t appear to regret the decision to snub Manchester United and Manchester City, currently delighted with how things are going at the Ligue 1 side.
