Xherdan Shaqiri has revealed that he almost joined Liverpool in summer 2014, before Bayern Munich scuppered the move.
Shaqiri joined Stoke in a £12million move in summer 2015, but the Swiss international has yet to truly settle at any one club through his nine-year professional career.
He moved to Bayern Munich from Basel in 2012, but failed to establish himself in Germany.
The winger then moved to Inter Milan at the start of 2015 before joining Stoke just months later, but he has revealed that his first Premier League club was almost Liverpool.
“That summer, I had offers from Liverpool and Atletico Madrid,” he told Football Italia.
“I wanted to leave Bayern at all costs. I decided to join Liverpool, Brendan Rodgers had already called me a couple of times before the World Cup, but Bayern stopped me.
“The Bayern directors thought that the situation would change, but it didn’t. Gianluca Gaudino was preferred to me in the first game.
“This was, of course, a signal for me, in that I didn’t understand why they wanted to keep me at all costs.
“Inter? They simply tried for me the most. They promised me a new Inter. In the Bundesliga, I’d already won everything.”