Tottenham missed out on the signing of Marco Asensio eight years ago because the club were too slow to act in the transfer market, according to a former member of staff.
Asensio joined Real Madrid from Real Mallorca back in December 2014 after the Spanish giants agreed to pay a fee of just £3.5million for the 18-year-old midfielder.
He has gone on to contribute 46 goals and 23 assists in 221 appearances for Real Madrid since, winning two La Liga titles and two Champions League trophies.
But the early stages of the 26-year-old midfielder’s career could have been very different, had Ramon Planes got his way.
Planes worked as technical secretary at Tottenham between 2014 and 2015, when Mauricio Pochettino was in charge, and recommended the club move for Asensio.
“I watched a Zaragoza-Mallorca game and was amazed by a player called Marco Asensio,” he said on Radio Marca, as reported by Mundo Deportivo .
“And in the same car park at La Romareda, I called my superiors at Tottenham to tell them that he had to be signed.
“In view of the experience, I wanted to speed up the signing of Pedri so that the same thing didn’t happen to me.”
Planes left Spurs and went onto work for Elche, Rayo Vallecano and Getafe before joining Barcelona in 2018, where he worked on recruitment.
He was influential in the deals to sign Pedri and Ronaldo Araujo, as well as pushing for the promotion of Nico Gonzalez and Gavi.
The 54-year-old left Barcelona in November and, according to ESPN , was in the running to become Newcastle ’s director of football before Dan Ashworth left Brighton to take up the role.
In the case of Asensio, the pull of Real Madrid proved too strong, with the Spanish giants pulling out all the stops to land him.
That even included sporting director Florentino Perez roping in one of the club’s most famous fans, tennis star Rafa Nadal.
"I called Rafa Nadal and asked him to talk to his uncle Miguel Angel, who was Mallorca's sports director," Perez told Spanish radio station Onda Cero in 2017.
"[I told Nadal] to tell him that we wanted to buy him [Asensio]. He behaved perfectly and we closed the deal quickly."
Asensio was immediately loaned back to Mallorca for the remainder of the 2014/15 season and later spent time with Espanyol before making his Real breakthrough.
Amid reported interest from Chelsea and Arsenal, Asensio signed a six-year contract with Real in 2017.
He remains under contract until June 2023 and has nine goals and one assist in 27 appearances for Carlo Ancelotti’s side so far this season.
