Rafa Benitez has revealed the Real Madrid player he really wanted to sign for Liverpool when selling Michael Owen to the Spanish giants in 2004.
With a year left on his contract at Anfield, the England international joined Real Madrid in a deal worth £12m in August 2004, as the Reds received £8m and Antonio Nunez in exchange.
However, the Spaniard endured an injury-plagued stint with Liverpool. While he would win the Champions League and score in the League Cup final, he would make 27 appearances, of which only 13 were starts, in what proved to be his solitary season with the Reds before returning to Spain with Celta Vigo.
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Liverpool would sign Fernando Morientes from Real Madrid six months later in January 2005, while future signing Alvaro Arbeloa was also on the Spanish giants’ books at the time of the Owen/Nunez swap deal.
Yet Benitez had an entirely different player in mind who he initially tried to sign after agreeing to sell the striker - Juanfran,
“I had to try to get the best deal for my football club,” he said on the We Are Liverpool Podcast. “I was talking with Real because I knew Real Madrid quite well, and I was talking with a friend of mine, who was a journalist close to the president, to give me information about what they were thinking. And I knew 100 percent that they would do the deal.
“So I said to Rick Parry: ‘Rick, we have to do this price, and try to get this young player Juanfran in the deal’. Juanfran was playing for Real Madrid’s B team, and went on to play for Atletico Madrid as a right full-back and right winger. We needed a right winger.
“They said no, and then they put (Antonio) Nunez in the deal. We got Nunez, who was injured (a lot) and was maybe not the best signing, but I was trying to bring someone else to improve the deal for us, because it was done, it was just a question of how much.”
Juanfran would spend the 2005/06 season on loan at Espanyol, before joining Osasuna on a free transfer in 2006. He'd then join Atletico Madrid in 2011 for €4m.
The defender would go on to make 355 appearances for Atletico after leaving the Bernabeu, winning La Liga, the Copa del Rey, two Europa Leagues and reaching two Champions League finals, as well as winning Euro 2012 with Spain.
Meanwhile, Juanfran wasn’t the only player Benitez revealed he had missed out on during his time at Liverpool. He again recalled how the Reds missed out on Dani Alves because they didn’t have the funds for both the Brazilian and Dirk Kuyt.
He also revealed how he tried to sign Stefan Jovetic in 2009, believing a £16m transfer fee was within his budget only to be told otherwise by club bosses.
“I wanted to sign Jovetic,” he said. “He was playing for Fiorentina and the price was £16m. In my head, with my budget, I had the money. And then when I went to sign him I was told ‘no, you don’t have the money’.
“Then we played against Fiorentina, we lost 2-0, Jovetic scored two goals. This was the player that I wanted. These are the kind of things that fans don’t know. As a manager, you have to make decisions depending on the money available.”
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