Liverpool faced Ajax as they kicked off their new Champions League campaign with a win around five weeks ago - though the Dutch side looked very different to the one the Reds almost faced in the final in 2019.
In another reality, where Liverpool's miraculous comeback against Barcelona happened, but Tottenham's against Ajax didn't, it would have been the two European heavyweights who faced each other in Madrid, as they will do at Anfield on Tuesday.
One man who was crucial to the Ajax team that seasonbut didn't get a move to a bigger club in the summer was
.
Well-known to Liverpool's Brazilian triumvirate Alisson Becker, Roberto Firmino and Fabinho, who he plays alongside for his country, the winger has not earned the move that he might have wanted off the back of those stellar showings in 2019.
Ajax knocked out Real Madrid and Juventus that year, but as much as Neres would have wanted to kick on further since, he remains a big threat, as he showed in the Johan Cruyff Arena.
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Around 12 months ago, Liverpool were regularly named alongside other European giants like Bayern Munich, plus PSG and Tottenham, as being interested in the player, who has made seven appearances for his country, Brazil, scoring once.
Since then, though, the rumours have been much quieter - mainly because Neres has not been performing to the same level that he had been in 2018/19, when he was every bit as important to that Ajax team as someone like Frenkie de Jong.
On the Behind Enemy Lines podcast before the first game, Michael Statham from Football Oranje had explained: "Neres had a long-term injury that kept him out of the majority of one season.
"Then he said he would stay another year and prove to himself that he could do it still. But he hasn’t yet been given the opportunity in the Eredivisie, maybe because he is not ready yet to be starting games, or maybe he is not quite living up to the hype.
"He is still very capable, though, and in time, he will get the big move. The injury has just held him back from going along with the other players who left Ajax.
"Ajax have excellent years with excellent players and then they are all just lost. But at least they made good money out of it and they are able to reinvest it in their youth team."
Neres remains highly rated, and if Liverpool were ever truly interested in him, they will have continued to track his progress.
He certainly impressed against Andy Robertson in Amsterdam, completing more dribbles than any other player on the pitch despite only featuring for 74 minutes.
Still only 23, Neres has plenty of time ahead of him to improve, and will be hoping that this season he is more like the player he was in 2019 than last term.
If he can reproduce that form, Europe's elite would no doubt once again circle. His showing against Liverpool in Amsterdam was the first hint that he might be on the right track to doing just that.
