DBasia.news – There is one great figure behind Sevilla’s success to achieve 11 trophies in 2000-2017. He is Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo or Monchi. He was the former goalkeeper of Sevilla in 1990-1999.
Monchi is a former professional football player with the instinct to see the talent of a player. During his 17-year career as Sevilla’s Sporting Director, Monchi has established a connection with 700 talent scouts all over the world.
Sevilla experienced the blessing of Monchi’s presence who got high-quality players like Alberto Moreno, Jesus Navas, Sergio Ramos, Jose Antonio Reyes. Not only adding Sevilla’s quality with talented players overlooked by Europe top clubs, Monchi also gave the advantage to the club financially through the transfer.
Bought at affordable price from other clubs, Adriano, Dani Alves, Julio Baptista, Federico Fazio, Ivan Rakitic, and Seydou Keita, were sold at high prices to the interested clubs. Monchi wasn’t only selling them for profit and lowering down the squad quality because talented young players replaced those who left as well.
Now, AS Roma who appointed Monchi as the Sporting Director since 2017 experiences the same blessing. Two of his first touches are Patrik Schick and Cengiz Under as the successors of Mohamed Salah left joining Liverpool.
During the second round, Monchi was getting crazier showing his tenacity, intelligence, and power to recruit young talented players in affordable price. Roma got at least 59 million euro revenue for selling Radja Nainggolan to Inter Milan, also three other players: Juan Iturbe, Lukasz Skorupski, and Ervin Zukanovic.
Sure, Monchi was calculating their leave. The new 8 players recruited during the 2018 summer transfer market before July began proved it. Roma has spent 100 million euro to get them.
They who came have high profile or popular in Europe, which are Javier Pastore, Davide Santon, and Justin Kluivert. Pastore was coming from Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) worth 24 million euro to replace Nainggolan. Nainggolan’s transfer also involved Santon and Nicolo Zaniolo move to Roma.
Selling one player and got three players in return, is the typical way of ‘Monchi’. While for young talented players who came to Stadio Olimpico are Ante Coric, Bryan Cristante, Zaniolo, and Kluivert. The other two players are Ivan Marcano and Antonio Mirante.
Labeling them as a successful player is too soon right now, we can see that during and after the season. But, seeing Roma’s maneuver so far, Monchi has done a good job. It’s all depends on Eusebio Di Francesco to compose the squad and collaborating everyone on behalf of Roma.