Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jordan Henderson made a strong effort to persuade Jude Bellingham to join Liverpool during the 2022 World Cup, as revealed by Conor Coady.

Liverpool had been long-time admirers of the 20-year-old Bellingham while he was still with Borussia Dortmund and attracting interest from Europe’s top clubs.

It was widely believed that Bellingham was Liverpool’s primary target last summer when Jurgen Klopp was looking to revamp his midfield. However, Real Madrid ultimately secured the former Birmingham City prodigy’s signature after Liverpool withdrew from the pursuit.

Prior to that, Liverpool fans had speculated on social media that Alexander-Arnold and Henderson were attempting to lure Bellingham to Anfield during the World Cup in late 2022. Coady has now confirmed that those rumors were true.

The Everton defender, who was part of England’s World Cup squad in Qatar, humorously shared on BBC 5 Live Sport, “I think Hendo and Trent definitely tried to persuade Jude at the World Cup, 100 percent.”

He added, “They practically man-marked him the entire time. Honestly, if you’re at a club like Liverpool and you know a player like Jude is likely to leave in the summer, of course, you’d try to convince him, no doubt about it.”

He continued, “They’d sit on either side of him, and while we were all eating, they’d be talking about how great Liverpool and Klopp are, and we’d just be there listening to them.”

Klopp acknowledged in January that Liverpool had been interested in signing Jude Bellingham before they decided to change their approach. Instead, they brought in Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Wataru Endo, and Ryan Gravenberch over the summer.

He explained, “We were keen on Bellingham, but when we realized it wasn’t going to happen, we considered going after Caicedo. However, he already had an emotional commitment to Chelsea and Mauricio Pochettino. Lavia also had his own reasons for not joining us, so we explored other options and found our top solutions.”

Klopp added, “We brought in Wataru (Endo), we knew Macca (Alexis Mac Allister) could play the role, and Dom (Dominik Szoboszlai) was always on my radar. If one of those £100 million signings had gone through, we wouldn’t have been able to sign anyone else. That’s what I meant when I said we were fortunate—everything worked out perfectly in the ‘if not’ scenario.”