Before his move from Liverpool to Barcelona was finalized, there were reports linking Luis Suárez to Real Madrid.

“There’s always reports linking the big players with Real Madrid, but we had no contact with Liverpool regarding Suárez in the summer – he is not a player that we felt we needed," said Zinedine Zidane. "When Real Madrid want a player we work very hard to get the transfer done, but he isn’t a player we wanted.”

Real Madrid spent the summer investing in Toni Kroos and James Rodríguez.

“Suárez is obviously a very good player, but he was not a player we felt we needed to add to the squad at any time. The targets we acquired in the summer were the ones who we wanted all along.”