Imagine the scene. Jürgen Klopp, just recently signed by Liverpool, at the end of 2015, digging into his laptop and typing ‘new Brazilian talents’ on YouTube. Young kids or newcomers to the Brasileirao and one who immediately enters the eye. Write down the name (Rodrygo Goes) and the club where he plays (Santos). In his mind he already thinks of it being his first signing at Anfield.
Although it sounds like the delirium of a fanciful journalist or the braking past of a novelist, this is how Rodrygo could end up being a Liverpool star instead of this footballer who pocketed Real Madrid with his double against Manchester City. Direct sources familiar with how that developed tell it. “Klopp was so shocked by what he saw on the internet that he even considered coming to Brazil to see it”.
It was not necessary, but the signing was tried hard. Rodrygo was 16 years old, it was already clear why he was going to be called The Ray of Vila Belmiro, and the boy’s agent traveled to England to hear the proposal. He was powerful enough to return with the firm intention of taking Rodrygo to Anfield, but the financial offer did not seduce Santos so much. It was from six million euros more bonuses. “Evandro -a former Manchester City Brazilian soccer player who was the one who made Rodrygo debut- He advised the president of Santos to wait, that with a year exhibiting the boy in the first team his price could be multiplied”they explain.
Rodrygo, with his father Eric and his sister in the background, signs an autograph at the Stade de France.
REUTERS
Afternoon. Said and done, with the inconvenience for Liverpool, which did not extend his offer, that in that year Rodrygo broke into the star-system of Brazilian football as a new precocious jewel and Madrid did enter like a bison after him. Juni Calafat, much more skilled in how to access the environment of soccer players and clubs in Brazil, did round off the operation as he had done a short time before with Vinicius and Madrid played it (he paid 40 million although the contribution of the player himself was key , who had part of his pass) although he heard voices that both players occupied too similar demarcations on the field. Calafat and his right-hand man in Brazil convinced Rodrygo and his father, former soccer player Eric Goes, with an ambitious proposal economically but also in sportsin addition to becoming part of a backbone for the future cradled by Marcelo and Casemiro and reinforced as well as Come on by Militao and Reinier.
Klopp probably moved on to other things, because he was beginning to build this Liverpool that he has put in three Champions League finals and today threatens Madrid with taking the Fourteenth, but he betrays a fondness for that profile that Rodrygo showed. He may have found it now in a South American player, the coffee grower louis diazbut First it was Rodrygo and his rival has him today in Paris.