I tried to sign Liverpool legend but was blocked because of FIFA transfer rules

When Sven-Goran Eriksson takes charge of Liverpool Legends on Saturday, he will be fulfilling a lifelong dream.

The former England manager is a boyhood Reds fan. And while he never got to manage Liverpool in his own career, such a wish has been made a reality by the LFC Foundation as the Legends prepare to host Ajax at Anfield on Saturday.

Steven Gerrard is set to captain a 21-man Liverpool Legends squad that also features the likes of Fernando Torres and Sami Hyypia. Yet the former England captain is the only player Eriksson has managed before.

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But rather than any of the legends he will be taking charge of on Saturday, it is a man in the dugout alongside him who Eriksson most
regrets being unable to sign.

“I should have bought him for Roma,” the Swede declared as soon as he sat down for a pre-match press conference at the AXA Training Centre on Friday, previewing the eighth annual Legends match.

Club legend John Barnes, who will be one of Eriksson’s assistant managers on Saturday alongside ECHO columnist John Aldridge and Ian Rush, is the one that got away.

“But if he had bought me, I wouldn’t have come to Liverpool. ‘86. Only two foreign players,” Barnes replied. “So we couldn’t,” Eriksson continued, before proceedings officially got underway. “But that was very close. Some years ago!”

Barnes would directly be asked about his transfer near-miss once the press conference officially got underway, admitting it was only FIFA transfer rules that stopped him from making the move to Roma.

But while he was open during his playing career about how he would