'Naughty' tricks stopped Begovic Spurs move, while Liverpool chose Mignolet instead

The Toffees shot-stopper has a long and storied career in England which began almost 20 years ago and reached its pinnacle with a Premier League title playing for Chelsea in 2017.

Playing for nine different English sides throughout his career, Begovic had memorable stints at Stoke and Bournemouth, as well as where it all began, in Portsmouth.

Moving to the south coast as a 16-year-old, Begovic joined the club for a trial, with another lined up at Spurs two weeks later, however, it didn't turn out that way.

Begovic recalled: "About 20 years ago when I first came to England when I was 16, I had two trials lined up, Portsmouth and Spurs, two weeks at each.

"I walked into Portsmouth and I had a really unbelievable two days of training and played a little friendly and the academy director pulled me in and said 'Look I want to sign you, two year academy, two year pro, but under one condition'.

"I said 'What's that condition?' and he said, 'You can't go to Spurs' so I was like, 'Sure, done deal whatever,' it was my dream to come to England so that was pretty easy.

"We'll pull the offer if you go to Spurs on trial basically, I had another 10 days at Portsmouth and then I was supposed to go to Spurs.

"It's a bit naughty that," replied talkSPORT host Darren Bent, but Begovic has no regrets.

"It was easy," he said. "I was 16 and it was my dream to come to England, it was a no brainer."

Later on in the Bosnian's Pompey career he was again approached by Tottenham and went even closer, completing a full medical before changing his mind the following day.

"That was the time Pompey were in trouble," he explained. "They had just got into the Premier League, I was playing a few games, really enjoying it, loving the experience.

"But they were in financial trouble so any assets in January would have to be sold, so I knew there was a chance I would have to go that window.

"I had a call two or three days before the end of the window and my agent said there's a deal for you and Younes Kaboul to go to Spurs.

"I travelled up to London, had a medical all day, it was literally a 10 hour thing, I walked out later and had so many missed calls from my agent so I met him in the evening and he said Stoke have come in for you, Tony Pulis wants to speak to you.

"I ended up speaking to them, I went home that night just to think about everything and Spurs thought I was in the hotel so in the morning they were thinking I was going to sign.

"So I went home just to think about it, to talk to my girlfriend that I wanted to go to Stoke, but Pompey kept pressing me to go to Spurs saying 'no we've done the deal' it was paying off some debt.

"I just thought it was the better place for my development to play. [Spurs manager] Harry Redknapp was great, he said, '[Heurelho] Gomes is going in the summer, you'll play' but I just thought Stoke was a better path for me."

Despite winning the Premier League with Chelsea, Begovic could have instead won the Champions League with Liverpool, as he also revealed.

The starting berth under Brendan Rodgers was between him and Simon Mignolet, with the later signing from Sunderland and going on to pick up a winner's medal in 2019.

He said: "The main one was Liverpool, it was between me and Mignolet at the time.

"At Stoke I was still under contract for three or four years so they wanted too much money and Mignolet only had one year left and he was a good deal for them, that was a close one."