Sundowns almost signed Luis Diaz ahead of Liverpool, says coach Manqoba Mngqithi

Johannesburg — Had it not been that they "slept" in their pursuits, Mamelodi Sundowns would have two of the best South American internationals at their disposal. That is the opinion of co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi who opened up about their failed transfers.

Known to have a knack of signing South American players, Sundowns once hunted down Colombian and Brazilian Luis Diaz and Vinicius Jr. But after delays during the negotiations, they lost out to FC Porto and Real Madrid respectively.

Diaz was recently the talk of town, following his lucrative move from Porto to Liverpool in the recently closed transfer window. While Vinicius Jr has been one of the standout players at Madrid, inspiring them to the top of La Liga standing thus far.

“We’ve lost a lot of other players,” said Mngqithi, despite lauding the network of scouts that have done some good business for them in South America. “One of them (the player that we lost) signed for Liverpool recently, can you believe it?

“We should have signed him before he joined Porto. We were on top of Diaz. Unfortunately, we were delayed for one or two days and he signed for Porto. We have looked at a lot of players. I don’t want to lie to you. You will think that I am.”

He added: “Even Vinicius was one of the players that was on the list of the players that we should have signed. We saw him in the Brazilian Cup and we were trying to chase him and we slept a little bit. The following day, Madrid signed him."

Mngqithi, though, knows too well there's no use crying over spilt milk. After all, there are South Americans, such as Ricardo Nascimento, Gaston Sirino and Leonardo Castro, who’ve contributed to Sundowns’ success in the last few years.

And that’s why he’s banking on new signing Erwin