Man…I will be in East Germany and Poland…otherwise I would grad a beer with you.
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Braulio almost close to being official it seems.
Braulio. Let’s see if he can get a group of men behind him.
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Birmingham is a dour, grey industrial dump full of kebab shops though;)
Even if he will stay in a nicer place outside the city.
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In the words of the great Mike Harding on Birmingham.
“If Britain had piles, that’s where they would be.
How can 900,000 people all have the same speech impediment”? 
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https://twitter.com/elchiringuitotv/status/1670757175562588161?t=dwHBWWUsQSrF9-fX8DwOYg&s=19
Cobeño’s Men just doesn’t have the same ring to it…
But assuming this gets more reliably confirmed… I’m mainly just glad that someone is going to get working on the summer transfer season to avoid a repeat of last year. Somehow I worry about the following scenario: Fernando Navarro, bitter that he’s not been picked, and Mendilibar, not necessary the crown jewel of market watchers. Hoping things don’t get too badly behind this summer…
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Interesting. negotiations with Braulio failed to come to a agreement, possibly him not liking the team that would be put together. I can’t say to much about Cobeño, Vallecano have been doing great for their stature. But hard to know what about his network, connections and way of working, will help us. This summer will tell.
Cobeñeros, has a ring to it.
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Doesn’t really show a great deal on paper to be honest. Mostly piddels in the free transfer market. Biggest transfers for the club appear to be Isi Palazon, Oscar Trejo, Fran Garcia, and RDT who is Rayo’s record transfer fee of 8 million Euros. Somehow talked Falcao to come on a free as well.
He also signed Gael Kakuta…after Sevilla experiemented all those years back.
I’m not so excited. It’s a huge step up for him. Maybe we need some of that frugality back in the club, but will he be too frugal?
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I’m not worried about him being too frugal, per se. But about him not being familiar with working in the middle tier of higher spending clubs like SevillaFC. Or perhaps, of the Board trying to skimp on footballing and not having a sufficient counterweight in the Sporting Director role, which ends up with frugality as the end result, but driven not be a cheapskate Sporting Director, but by a weak Sporting Director.
Anyhow, at the end of the day, Sporting Directors rarely have remotely the influence that Monchi had… hopefully Cobeño and Navarro are buddies from back in the day and can figure this out in tandem.
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And one final post on the Monchi subject. If you are Monchi in February of 2023 and your club is going to hell in a handbasket, who among us wouldn’t gladly pen a deal with Aston Villa to escape? It is a shame it didn’t end cleanly and with a happy goodbye this time (I was at his goodbye match the first time he left, it was moving), but I sincerely don’t harbor ill will towards either Emery or Monchi.
And heck, I might just be proud owner of an Aston Villa kit by the end of summer, we’ll see.
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agree with all the comments above.
the signing doesnt exactly signal ambition from the board. makes me nervous.
and absolutely dont harbor any ill will to Monchi at all. he’s been to and through hell with this team. his mental health clearly suffers from the intense personal attachment he feels to the club. i can’t begrudge him needing the distance and also not wanting to retire. im sure he’s getting paid tons more as well and he has the absolute right to pursue that as he sees fit. i wish him the best.
Ryan, let me know when you’re getting those AV jersey orders in. tho, tbh, id like to know when anyone from the DC area is getting a sevilla jersey order in first… none of those second hand shops have my size.
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Looks like it’s Victor Orta now
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More twist and turns than a Kardashians love life.
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Not much to worry about there, those Sevilla teams had talent which the current setup does not. Aston Villa are pretty well set up as a team with only goalkeeper being a question mark if Martinez leaves, Mings is nowhere near world class but I don’t see Nianzou or Marcao challenging him in any way. Kamara, Tielemans and Douglas Luiz are all younger than Raki and Fernando, only player that could help them in any way is Ocampos and that’s it.
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I’d say the only ones we’d feel sad about at this point are: Bono, Ocampos, Acuna and maybe to some extent Lamela and YEN. The only way for things to turn chaotic is if every one of them leaves, which I can’t see it happening.
No one’s going after Tecatito because of his injury and Bade has already signed a new contract so I don’t see him moving for at least 1-2 seasons (hopefully 2+).
So we’re generally safe in that regard.
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I’d feel sad about Ocampos and Acuna. I’m relatively convinced that Bono will be leaving this summer anyway, and YEN can’t have much longer left with us. He’s making waves and will be gone sooner than later as well.
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VICTOR ORTA CONFIRMED AS NEW SPORTING DIRECTOR Víctor Orta appointed Sporting Director | Sevilla FC
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Very encouraged to see Victor Orta is the guy.
Victor-y will be ours. Orta hell with the whole Board.
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I thought we’d be relegated with Mendilibar so I’ll hold any judgement until we actually see results, but I have a terrible feeling about these events as a whole.
Of all the people in the front office and board that we could move on from and improve things for the club, Monchi feels like he’s pretty far down the list. I can’t help but think that he’s the scapegoat in this situation, and Orta (or whoever else we could have signed) is going to struggle in the same way that Monchi did this year as long as the rest of the higher ups are still in place.
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I dunno, on the bright side, I suspect Victor Orta has been able to follow the market pretty actively after leaving Leeds and is actually just as well connected to the network/market as Monchi was. And yes, there won’t be crazy money to spend like EPL, but I think Orta will find his way in Sevilla with new skills after his Leeds flameout, just like Monchi came back to Sevilla with new lessons after spending time in Rome.
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Apparantly Orta doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page so I’m going on the info from Transfermarkt. If it’s comforting in any way he served as a technical assistant at Sevilla for 7 years which means he worked with Monchi so he should have picked up a few tricks.
Next is to look at this track record, he did unearth a couple of solid players such as Klich, Alioski and Jansson in his first season and followed with Bamford and Meslier. These players got them promoted to the premier league so he does have an eye for talent. Rodrigo, Firpo, James and Harrison arrived for more princely fees and the results were mixed.
The past season they went all out under Jesse Marsch (a unconvincing hire imo), signed two from RB Salzburg, Sinisterra, Tyler Adams and Marc Roca. Injuries and indifferent form screwed them over, and their two expensive young signings Gnonto and Rutter failed to deliver, leading to their downfall.
Reckon he does scout for solid role players and add young ones if the money is there, but with every club scouting for young talents finding the ones which slipped under the radar is tough. At least he worked with Monchi for a bit so the philosophy should be similar.
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