Inter striker Edin Dzeko joined from Roma in the summer, but he had even been close to becoming a Nerazzurri player two years earlier.
Speaking to his old Manchester City teammate Micah Richards on Zoom, via FCInterNews, the Bosnian opened up about the decision to join Inter in the summer and also admitted that he had nearly made the same move two years earlier.
Dzeko had already won league titles in Germany and England when he made the switch to Roma in the summer 2015, and he went on to establish a reputation for himself within Italian football in his six seasons with the Giallorossi.
The 35-year-old had been a target for a number of clubs based on his form with Roma, and the Nerazzurri had always been among the most interested clubs.
Dzeko was signed last summer as the club looked to bolster their attack following Romelu Lukaku, but as he explained he had already once been close to making the switch when he was a target for Antonio Conte.
“Last summer was the first time I thought to myself. ‘I’m not going anywhere.'” he explained. “The year before there had been something with Juventus, and two years before that there was something with Inter, the negotiations were all but done.”
He went on that “Last summer I did not expect to leave after the arrival of Jose Mourinho. I spoke to him when he arrived and he knew I still had a year on my contract.”
“It was an honour for such a great coach to have come to the club,” he added. “I told him, ‘I’m here and I will give everything for you and for the club. But since this is the last year of my contract, if something comes up, can we consider it?'”
“Within a few days Tammy Abraham was signed from Chelsea, and Inter came in for me,” he went on.
On the transition made by Inter over the summer, the 35-year-old reflected that “Antonio Conte had done a great job over the last two years here. Nobody expected Inter to be where we are now, but I wasn’t afraid to join.”
“I know my qualities and there are a lot of great players here,” he made clear. “We’re doing great. We hope we can keep going like this.”
“We’ve won the Supercoppa for the first time in ten years,” he continued. “We’ve reached the round of sixteen in the Champions League for the first time in ten years as well.”
“We’re still top of the table in the league and we want to stay there,” Dzeko emphasized. “We want to keep going.”
Asked about what he thought of the Nerazzurri’s Champions League round of sixteen draw, the striker joked “Which one? The one against Liverpool or what we thought we were getting against Ajax?”
“Look, it was weird,” he said of the re-draw. “That had never happened before! It wasn’t a fortunate draw for us because Liverpool can definitely hurt anyone. But it’s the Champions League, the best competition in the world.”
“Liverpool are favourites, we know it,” the striker said. “But you can’t say 100% that one team will beat the other. We also have a great team and I think there will be a lot of goals.”
“We’re both attacking teams,” he emphasized. “We’re not a typical Italian team that sits back. But in matches like this you have to defend well.”
On former Roma teammate Mohamed Salah, Dzeko said that “I’ll talk to him and Alisson before the match. In a way, I helped Salah to become the footballer he is. I’m so happy for him, he’sa great guy who deserves everything he’s gotten.”
“It’s the same with Alisson,” he said of the former Giallorossi goalkeeper now playing for Liverpool. “We were together two seasons, and in the second season we made it to the Champions League semi-final where Liverpool beat us.”
“To win the big trophies, you need to players like this,” he said. “They made the right choice by moving there, even if at the time Liverpool were not yet winning many trophies.”
