Sebastian Coates: From Dreams to Disillusion

"Coates, del sueño a la desilusión," reads the headline in Uruguay's El Observador. Or, in English, "from dreams to disillusion," though even for those whose familiarity with Spanish doesn't go much past <em>una cerveza, por favor</em> the downbeat message on offer will have been clear.

For Liverpool fans who watched Sebastian Coates arrive from Nacional two years ago on the back of being named the young player of the tournament at the Copa America and anchoring his club side's defence in two editions of the Copa Libertadores, it's another depressing reminder of how quickly he has gone from next big thing to unwanted spare part.

And if the headline sets the tone, the body of the interview the player sat down for after arriving back in Montevideo ahead of Uruguay's World Cup qualifying match against Paraguay on Friday only drives it home: This isn't a player who is happy in his current situation, and it isn't a player likely to still be at Liverpool next season.

"I asked [in January] if there was any chance of going on loan to another club but [Brendan Rodgers] said I could not," admitted the defender. "I want to play, and most of all to be involved in the Uruguayan team like every other player. With that in mind I need to play, whether in Liverpool or somewhere else."

Calling his situation complicated and admitting he would be open to offers of heading elsewhere, be it in Europe or even making a return to South America by moving to Brazil's Serie A, Coates insisted he is still working hard in training and hoping for a chance to prove himself at Liverpool.

"I almost always travel with the team and only find out on the day of when I've been left out," he said. "But I try to stay positive, train well, and wait for my opportunity. I have a contract until 2016, but don't know what will happen in the future. I will wait until the end of the season and then speak to the club."

Even if Coates appears fed up with wasting away on the bench after playing an integral role for both club and country before he left Uruguay, he did admit that if the situation at Anfield changed such that he believed he would get the chance to play at a "very important club" like Liverpool then he would happily stay.

Of course, it's increasingly difficult to imagine that happening. Not when after almost an entire season of training under Rodgers the defender still can't get a sniff of first team action. Coates has had one foot out the door since January, and neither the fans, the manager, nor the player himself have given any sign they believe he won't be all the way gone by the time the summer window slams shut.

Though his time at Anfield obviously hasn't gone the way he would have wished, hopefully he'll end up somewhere that allows him to regain the form he was on before moving to Liverpool and that will help him to continue developing into the cornerstone of Uruguay's defence he hopes to one day be.