What’s the story?
Borussia Dortmund duo, Ousmane Dembele and Christian Pulisic have revealed that they turned down move to Liverpool. The youngsters have been a regular at BVB this season, helping the Yellow brigade in their Champions League campaign.
Jurgen Klopp tried to sign Dembele from Rennes before he eventually joined Dortmund. The Frenchman also revealed that he had contact with Leicester City but was only keen on joining the Bundesliga side.
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“I saw Klopp in Paris, but I told him I had made up my mind to sign for Dortmund.” recalled the teenage while talking to FourFourTwo. He went to say that he said the same thing the Claudio Ranieri, who was recently sacked by the Premier League champions.
Apart from Dembele, Liverpool were also keen on signing Pulisic from Dortmund. They had a £11 million bid rejected by the German club, and the player has not revealed that he was not interested in joining them as well.
“I have respect for Klopp, and I know him - he was very welcoming to me here - but I was never really thinking about going to Liverpool. Dortmund have given me everything. If I work very hard here I will play, and I love this club.” said the American wonderkid.
In case you didn’t know...
Klopp used to manage Borussia Dortmund before he joined Liverpool. He was in charge of the German side for seven seasons before departing after the end of the 2014/15.
He managed to make BVB a club capable of challenging Bayern Munich for the title and also made them capable of becoming a solid side in the Champions League. He won the Bundesliga twice (2010–11 & 2011–12), DFB-Pokal once (2011–12) and the DFL-Supercup two times (2013 & 2014).
He also guided them to the Champions League final in 2012–13 but lost to Bayern Munich courtesy of an 89th-minute goal by Arjen Robben. Dortmund finished 2nd in the 2012-13 & 2013-14 Bundesliga season, but after a poor start to the 2014-15 season, he decided to leave the club when the season got over.
The heart of the matter
Klopp is a big admirer of Pulisic and was instrumental in bringing the American youngster to Dortmund’s Academy in January 2015. But the youngster was not able to debut under the German manager.
Dembele was highly rated at Rennes and was attracting interest from all the big clubs in Europe. Liverpool too were interested in him, and Klopp made a personal appeal to the young Frenchman to join him at Anfield.
Both the youngsters have been a regular for the club this season under Tuchel as they are building a good team made of wonderkids.
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Sportskeeda’s Take
Liverpool would have been doing a lot better in the Premier League had they signed these two players. Pulisic would have been an upgrade to Emre Can while Dembele would have been running rings around the defenders in the league.
