Luis Suarez told Barcelona to sign fellow Uruguayan Darwin Nuñez while he was playing for the club.
Nunez was playing at Almeria in the Spanish Segunda Division, where he scored 16 goals in 30 games in the 2019/20 campaign.
He was then snapped up by Benfica, where he's grown into one of the most exciting strikers around.
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Nunez scored twice against Barcelona in the 3-0 Champions League group stage win last month and is now being talked about as a Є100 million player after notching eight goals in six appearances this season.
Suarez, now at Atletico Madrid, reckons Barca could have got him for much cheaper if they would have listened to him.
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“When he was at Almeria, I said it at Barca," he said on Twitch stream with Gerard Romero.
"They asked me and I said ‘look after this guy, he’s very interesting’, but they said no, he’s at Almeria, he’s very young. But instead of paying now 80, 90, or 100 million, they would have paid 15 or 20.”
In the same interview, Suarez laid into Barca manager Ronald Koeman for the 40 second phone call that ended his six-season stint with the Blaugrana.
“The call from Koeman to tell me that [I wasn't in his plans] lasted 40 seconds, it's not the way to say goodbye to a legend.
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“First, he told me that I wasn't in his plans, and then he told me that if I didn't get my contract sorted out, I wasn't going to play against Villarreal.
“He lacked the personality to tell me clearly if he didn't want me or if it was really the club that didn't want me.”
Suarez looked set to join Juventus in the summer of 2020 but after the move collapsed he remained in Spain with Atletico, who he fired to the La Liga title last term with 21 goals.
Just under a week ago, the former Liverpool man scored against Barca in a 2-0 win and made a phone gesture in apparent dig at under-pressure Koeman.
Topics: Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Benfica, Luis Suarez
