Pep Lijnders has revealed he was forced to interrupt a skiing holiday to help persuade Luis Diaz to join Liverpool.
The Reds were compelled to make their move for long-time target Diaz shortly before the January transfer window closed after Tottenham Hotspur expressed an interest in signing the Porto winger.
Liverpool assistant manager Lijnders was on a trip away during the mid-winter break when he received a call urging him to join Jurgen Klopp in selling their vision to the Colombia international.
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And in an excerpt from his new book 'Intensity: Inside Liverpool FC - Our Identity’, Lijnders has detailed how an emergency collective effort ensured the £50million deal went through, with Diaz becoming an integral part in the team that won the League Cup and FA Cup last season.
"I was on a skiing trip with my wife Danielle when, during dinner, our sporting director called me," said Lijnders. "'You and Jurgen have to speak with Luis Diaz in five minutes. We’ve just agreed with Porto but Tottenham are all-in as well.'
"I joined the call and Jurgen was explaining to Luis how he would fit into our style and that we would help him. He said in reference to me joining (the call) 'but you will hear this guy much more often!' to which I immediately said 'but I will explain things more calmly than Sergio (Conceicao, the Porto manager)!', to which Luis laughed.
"I told him: 'We want you desperately and have been pushing for the last one-and-a-half months with our owners and our sporting director, but you know that these kinds of transfers are not easy to accomplish. The good thing is you will train with Virgil, Robbo and Trent and they will make you so much stronger. Our idea is to create and score; you will have to tear these guys apart each day in training, which will make you better'.
"His agent translated Jurgen’s message and Julian Ward said 'these two will make you a better player'. I told him there were not many clubs with more history and culture than Porto but Liverpool was one of them and he would feel this. Julian then walked with his phone to the trophy cabinet at AXA and finished with 'we want to add to this and that’s why we want you'.
"If the boy wasn’t convinced, he would be now. What started as a bad adventure on the slopes ended with an incredible signing. We signed the one we wanted. My crazy day couldn’t have ended better. Would he be the difference-maker for the rest of this season? We hoped so."
Serialised from Pep Lijnders Intensity: Inside Liverpool FC - Our Identity, published by Reach Sport, on sale August 4 from liverpoolfc.com/store and reachsportshop.com
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