Liverpool’s past signings from Sporting Lisbon haven’t always worked out, with Joao Carlos Teixeira’s £830k move in 2012 being a prime example.
Despite being hailed as the ‘New Deco’, his time at Liverpool was marred by injuries and underwhelming loan spells, eventually leaving the club in 2016. Liverpool received £250k when Teixeira moved to FC Porto after making only eight appearances and scoring once for the Reds. This was still more impact than another player from Sporting Lisbon who joined Anfield.
In August 2013, former manager Brendan Rodgers made a double deadline day swoop, landing Mamadou Sakho from Paris Saint-Germain for £18m and 20-year-old Tiago Ilori in a £7m deal from Sporting Lisbon. Rodgers believed he had secured the Reds’ defence for the next decade.
Via the Liverpool Echo, Rodgers said at the time: “I wanted to try to protect the present and the future of the club,” and “Centre-halves are so hard to find. You look at some teams and they have ageing centre-halves because it is a struggle to get a really good one.”
He added: “We were fortunate in that two became available, one that we had been tracking for a year in Tiago Ilori, a young talent but who can be a big talent.”
Describing Ilori, Rodgers said: “He is 6′ 3″, super quick, power, can jump, and he just needs to adapt to the pace and physicality of the Premier League. He is one for the future, but he can be a really big talent.” And about Sakho, Rodgers stated: “Sakho is 23 but he is an experienced player. He has senior international caps and looks an absolute monster in training. He is one who is ready for now and that is what we want.”
Rodgers concluded: “We had a chance to do that and protect the club for maybe the next ten years and that is what we have done.” But Rodgers’ high hopes for Sakho didn’t pan out as expected. The Frenchman’s turbulent time at Anfield ended with a £26m move to Crystal Palace in August 2017, after making 80 appearances over four years.
Ilori, who was highly thought of before joining Liverpool, never played under Rodgers despite the manager’s claims of tracking him for a year. After his move to Anfield, he was loaned to Granada and Bordeaux, making a total of 24 appearances. “I want to play for Liverpool,” Ilori stated in August 2015, “I don’t want to be in Liverpool just to be sitting around.”
“My objective is the same as every other player, we all want to play so everyone’s going to fight for their place. I joined Liverpool two seasons ago to play for Liverpool, that is my number one objective so I’m going to do everything to make that happen.” He was loaned out to Aston Villa but didn’t get a chance to play before being recalled in January 2016.
Liverpool manager Klopp even admitted he didn’t know Ilori was a Reds player. “When I first came here I didn’t know he was an LFC player to be honest. Of course not, he was at Aston Villa,” he said.
But Klopp did see potential in Ilori after learning about him. “We got him here and you see then the potential. That’s good but they have all to learn, all to improve but they gave the sign but it is one sign.” Ilori made his debut against Exeter City in the FA Cup, and his final appearance was against West Ham United in the fourth round.
The player opened up about his hopes to join Klopp’s squad, saying after a match: “I’ve had a few chances to play which is great. I always thought there could be a future here. That’s why I signed for Liverpool in the first place. I just try and work hard every day.” He also mentioned the importance of playing together as a team, adding: “Players get experience by playing. I played alongside Lucas and he didn’t look at me and think: ‘he’s not as experienced’ and I didn’t look at him and think: ‘he’s the most experienced player’.”
“We all play together, we train together every day and we’re a team. There are a lot of good players at Liverpool for me to learn from. I just take it step by step.” Despite his potential, Klopp did not include him in his plans, and he was sold to Reading for £3.75m in January 2018, never having played in the Premier League. At Reading, he made 64 appearances over two years.
After returning to Portugal and Sporting in 2019, Ilori’s luck didn’t improve. After a series of unsuccessful loan spells and injuries, his contract was terminated in August despite having a year left. After five months without a club, he signed a short-term deal with Belenenses in Liga Portugal 2. However, his debut ended in defeat and he was an unused substitute in their next game, which saw them drop to the bottom of the table.
Now aged 30, Ilori hasn’t lived up to the ‘big talent’ Brendan Rodgers thought he could be. Coupled with Sakho’s failings, Liverpool’s £25m investment seems poorly spent, with their defensive issues only sorted after Klopp arrived and signed Virgil van Dijk in 2018.
Rodgers’ big talk about protecting Liverpool for a decade didn’t quite work out. Sakho and Ilori left the Reds by 2016, with Ilori’s tale still a bit of a mystery at Anfield. In a 2018 chat, Ilori opened up about his tough times at Liverpool. He said: “I played 12-13 games in a row (at Sporting) and then that’s when I first heard about Liverpool’s interest. I was negotiating a new contract with Sporting at the time, I had the equivalent of a youth team contract at the time, they were trying to adjust that.”
He also mentioned: “The club had some financial problems as well and we couldn’t come to an agreement at the time. There was a change of president at the club as well, so he had his ideas about how to get things done – there was a lot going on at the time.
“Then there was some interest from abroad and Liverpool showed more interest than anyone else. I broke my hand so I didn’t have a pre-season at Sporting, then I seem to have been punished for not signing a deal. Being young and stupid really, I reacted. I was willing to sign the deal, but then I was thinking if they were treating me like this then I wanted to leave.”
The footballer reflected on his past, saying: “Looking back now, I think it would have done me good staying another season. It was easy playing there, I was comfortable, they knew me and they knew what I was about. I was a young 19-year-old in the sense that, football-wise, I hadn’t played many games at a professional level. And from there to playing for Liverpool was a big step.
“It’s not that I couldn’t do it, but looking back now, maybe after another full season in Portugal and I would have gone into the next season with some confidence from the campaign before. Hopefully I’d have been able to get 20-30 games in at least, then that would have been different for me.”
Talking about his time at Liverpool, he said: “It was an unbelievable experience for me, the feeling I had when I signed for Liverpool. I only really understood what was happening months afterwards really, walking into training and looking at the players who were there at the time Suarez, Coutinho was young but he was already unbelievable, Gerrard obviously, Sturridge was on fire as well.”
He admitted: “It was definitely tough. I was in the squad at the beginning and I felt that the coach (Brendan Rodgers) really liked me. It just didn’t happen, it didn’t work my fault, obviously, because I’m the one who had to prove that I needed to play.”
Reflecting on his mindset, he concluded: “In my head I was looking too short-term – I didn’t realise the work I’d have to put in. So when someone would tell me that within the next two years I would be starting for Liverpool, I was thinking, why can’t I be in there in the next two months?”
The footballer opened up about his past, saying: “I should have gone there and had a plan. Obviously if I got the chance to play straight away I would, but over the next couple of years I would develop to a point physically and mentally, then be integrated within the club to be able to play and compete in every game. It was probably just an age thing, I’m looking back trying to find a reason but I don’t know why!”
He also talked about his surprise loan to Bordeaux in 2014. “I had international duty with the Under-21s and it went really well – we got to the final but lost to Sweden on penalties,” he said. “Personally and collectively it had been a good tournament – then I got back to Liverpool and, unexpectedly, went on loan again to Bordeaux.”
Reflecting on his time in France, he admitted: “I should have snapped out of it, but my head wasn’t right at the time. Bordeaux is a great club, a great place to live as well and the club is a really nice place to be. They really looked after me and wanted me to succeed, but my head wasn’t in the right place really.” He added: “I had a few injuries as well during that season, all muscle injuries. I still managed to get 15 or 16 games in, I wanted to play more than double that but considering the injuries and other stuff that was going on, it was enough.
“But at the time it was tough because I had a plan in that I wanted to be at Liverpool to play, I didn’t want to give that up. I wasn’t going to leave until I had my chance, but consistently getting those setbacks was really tough. (And) when I left Liverpool (permanently), it was tough. I had been there a while, I didn’t really get a chance and it didn’t happen the way I wanted it to.”
Ilori is unsure about why he didn’t get the opportunity he wanted at Liverpool. Recalling his struggles as a teenager after leaving Sporting Lisbon, Tiago Ilori paints a picture of an individual dealing with setbacks and rejection.
Rodgers once said Ilori would be a Reds centre-back for 10 years, yet now he’s trying to revive his career in Portugal’s second division. Looking at his struggles since departing from Liverpool, one might say the Reds have no regrets, perhaps feeling sympathy for a player still questioning where things went wrong.
