Although in these months of July and August we have the anomalous situation of watching League and Champions games, instead of summer bowling from various parts of the globe, the summer period, with or without coronavirus, is marked by handovers. “Without transfers there is no summer,” sports directors could announce. During the season they must be attentive to their squad, see how they can improve it and do scouting work on various players and coaches from different leagues. They are in charge of planning, designing and negotiating the templates for the next season. In many cases they have been the ones who have chosen the right coach for the project they are preparing.
Faced with the coronavirus crisis, they have had more obstacles to make the team sketch they have in their heads to achieve the objective set for the next course. The economic burden brought on by the pandemic will create a market with fewer movements and in which large-volume transactions are not carried out. They will have to carry out renovations and new signings with the important clause “until the end of the work” instead of “until June 30”, to avoid fright and problems if the leagues overflow the schedule for another break. They will also have to pamper the quarry, which in some cases served to withdraw money or hardly any opportunities, represent the great asset in a transfer market that is expected from the least troubled.
In BarcelonaFor example, they talk about barter, as they carried out in the agreement with Juventus between Arthur and Pjanic, whose manager will be ErIc Abidal, football technical secretary, and whose deputy is Ramón Planes. ex del Getafe. At Real Madrid it is José Ángel Sánchez the person in charge of these matters, who will have to carry out the reorganization of several of the loaned that they have, such as Kubo, who are looking for a team. At Atlético it's Andrea Berta the one who will have to organize the template of the next template with Simeone.
But it is Sevilla who has the best-known and best-valued sports director. This is Monchi, one of the few who dispute the title of 'king of summer' Mendes, Raiola or even Georgie Dann. He has been the architect of great signings throughout the history of Seville: Alves, Kanouté, Rakitic, Vitolo, Gameiro, Lenglet …This time he will have to continue with the project that started a season ago with Lopetegui and that they have managed to return to the Champions League. At Villarreal, that the Europa League will play, Roig Negueroles, son of the president, will make the Unai Emery template. In Real Sociedad and Granada, the other two teams classified for the Europa League will be Olabe and Fran Sánchez.
Valencia has not had the figure of sports director since the resignation of César Sánchez after the removal of Celades. This plot will be the one that was the second of the exguardameta, Crown, but without the rank of sports director. Alkorta, who holds this position in Athletic, has already announced that there will be no signings, and at Eibar Fran Garagarza is already working to put the Mendilibar wardrobe back together. Sergio Fernández and Braulio Vázquez are the counterparts of Alavés and Osasuna.
Ángel Martín, from Getafe, has already given Bordalás the first joy, the purchase of Cucurella. And he will have to continue working in a squad that has not qualified to play in Europe next season, but is still alive in this edition of the Europa League. In Levante, Manolo Salvador continues in office and Miguel Ángel Gómez in Valladolid. AND At Betis Antonio Cordón debuts, who has already declared that he has come “to wake up a sleeping giant”.
Celta sports director Felipe Miñambres will have more work since they intend to drastically reinforce the squad after being in the abyss and almost losing the category. Txema Indias (Leganés), Javier Recio (Mallorca) and Rufete (Espanyol) are in charge of designing the template for the three descended teams. Clubs like Leganés will have to make a great effort, since in addition to being on the alert throughout the season to know if they came down or were saved (which forced to watch out for players of both profiles), they will also have to cover the chips they leave all the transfers that finish the loan.