After Udinese, Polish midfielder Piotr Zieliński played for Napoli from 2016. He made a total of 364 appearances for the club, scoring 51 goals and assisting 46 in an impressive record, becoming one of the best midfielders in Europe.
Now 30, he plays for Inter Milan, but was the subject of numerous transfer rumours during his time at Napoli. Interest from Liverpool was also reported on numerous occasions, but the move never materialised and he never played in the Premier League.
However, the Polish midfielder confessed that he visited manager Jurgen Klopp at his home to discuss a possible move to Liverpool. He revealed the inside story, saying that he was praised as a combination of Gündoğan and Fabregas.
“At one time, Bruno Fernandes wanted me to end up in Manchester.”
“We are still in touch, we talk quite often – we played together in Udinese, and in one of the matches we practically single-handedly beat Milan.”
“As for West Ham – it was also close, De Laurentiis was also already convinced about the offer, they threw in €35 million.”
“There was already looking around for medical care for my wife and child, where I was going to live.”
“Coach [Luciano] Spalletti took me aside once and asked me what was going on, and I said I would rather stay, fight for the championship.”
“He said I want you to stay and that it would be the best version of Zielinski. I stayed because I didn’t really feel this London either.”
“Liverpool sent a private jet to Florence for me and I flew with my agent Bartlomiej Bolek – we drove up to [Jurgen] Klopp’s house afterwards, we had a great conversation.”
“It was the first time I had flown like that. He said that for him I was a mix of [Ilkay] Gundogan and [Cesc] Fabregas.”
“We watched a Premier League match at his place on his giant TV, I had never seen anything like that either.”
“Arsenal were closer to realisation than Barcelona because De Laurentiis didn’t want a few boys from La Masia in return.”
The Foot Truck YouTube channel