Julian Alvarez has been quite simply sensational for Atletico Madrid this season, and he carried on his fine form against Real Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
Julian Alvarez completed a £90 million move to Atletico Madrid from Manchester City in the summer, and he paid some of that fee back with his incredible strike against Real Madrid in the Champions League.
West Ham were actually heavily linked with a move to sign the striker back in 2022, before he joined Manchester City.
David Sullivan was prepared to back Moyes to bring Alvarez to East London.
The Hammers eventually missed out on the chance to bring him to the London Stadium, and the rest is history.
The 25-year-old Argentina international lit up the Bernabeu in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
Alvarez scored an absolute wonder goal for Atletico Madrid during their 2-1 defeat to bitter rivals Real Madrid in the last-16 first-leg tie.
He has now bagged 22 goals and five assists in 41 games for Diego Simeone’s side (Transfermarkt).
Julian Alvarez lights up Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid Champions League clash
The Argentina international looked like he was on another planet at times on Tuesday night.
He’s incredibly strong and hard-working, but is a truly exceptional finisher as well.
Alvarez has proved that all season long with Atleti, but against Real Madrid he took things to another level entirely.
Just look at that strike from the forward on what was a huge Champions League night, via TNT Sports:
That is world-class ability from Alvarez right there.
And seeing him do things like that on the biggest stage of them all just highlights the mistake Moyes made three years ago even more so.
What David Moyes said about Julian Alvarez in 2023
The Scot made some great signings for the Hammers during his second stint at the London Stadium.
He made some really poor ones as well. However, perhaps the most frustrating thing about Moyes’s tenure was his failure to bring in certain players because they ‘lacked Premier League experience’.
Alvarez was a player Moyes could have signed for West Ham.
But the Scot’s reasoning behind not bringing him to the club is what hurts the most.
Back in 2023, he was speaking on Diary of a CEO podcast about Alvarez, and why the striker didn’t end up at West Ham:
“I think it’s the ones I’ve missed, the ones where you say ‘No, I don’t think he’s quite good enough, I don’t think I want him’. And I’ve had hundreds of them.
“Just recently, because we’ve been talking about it, Alvarez who has just played for Argentina in the World Cup, I bought in a new scout who says ‘Look, you should go for Alvarez at River Plate’.
“I watched him and I thought he was a very good, really good technician and I thought he done so many good things as a centre forward but I thought maybe not quite the one we want, we had Micky Antonio who had been doing very well and I thought I don’t know.“
Wow, what an admission that is. Moyes will surely be waking up this morning feeling embarrassed about those comments from two years ago.
All transfers in football involve huge amounts of risk due to the massive finances involved.
Sometimes you just have to take a punt, and West Ham certainly should have done just that with the Argentinian ace.
Julian Alvarez proved to the world how special he is with an absolutely sublime goal in the Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid Champions League clash.
Had West Ham signed him in 2022, the Hammers owners undoubtedly would have had to sell him on by now, but the club would be a whole lot richer as a result.
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