As mentioned earlier, Benitez dropped a few transfer clangers during his time in the Anfield hot-seat, and failing to sign Alves was most certainly up there with the worst of them. The Spaniard showed great interest in signing the Brazilian in the summer of 2006, following his sensational displays for Sevilla at right-back. He had helped tear Middlesbrough to shreds in an embarrassingly one-sided UEFA Cup final a few months earlier, and at 23 he was a huge prospect. Alves was supposedly keen to join the Reds, but the club were unwilling to splash out £8m on him. Instead he joined Barcelona two years later, for £23m. The rest, as they say, is history. The Brazil international became a key player in arguably the greatest club side in the history of the game, under Pep Guardiola at Camp Nou, winning a huge amount of trophies and becoming widely regarded as the best full-back in world football. Liverpool made an enormous error not signing him.
