Pablo Longoria: the 'Niño de la Play' who will preside over Marseille

Pablo Longoria (Oviedo, 1986) he has been appointed the new president of Olympique de Marseille. The top president of the French club has a long career in the world of football despite his 34 years. In 2008 it landed at Newcastle and, after his time at the Premier League club, he played in the Recreativo de Huelva, Atalanta, Sassuolo, Juventus and Valencia before joining Marseille as sports director in July 2020. From this Friday, he has moved from the office of head of the sports area to the presidency.

Pablo Longoria is a precocious 'scouting', a soccer 'sick' who, advised by Víctor Orta, made his passion his profession. At the age of 18, he joined the group of scouts by Eugenio Botas, representative, among others, of his countryman Marcelino. The Asturian coach has known him from the beginning, collaborating (advising) Marcelino from time to time in his years in Huelva, Santander, Zaragoza and Valencia.

The signing of Sinama Pongolle for Recreativo

Longoria, who in his time as technical secretary of Recreativo (24 years old) was nicknamed with Andalusian irony the “Niño de la Play”, won over his Huelva critics with the signing of Sinama Pongolle, which came to a newly promoted from Liverpool. Longoria, who speaks six languages ​​(English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish), worked for four months as a scout for Newcastle. There, he took note of how to organize a first-level technical secretariat: 30 technicians spread around the world and a budget of five million for expenses in the recruitment area, including personnel, audiovisual and technological material and travel.

“I am not in favor of signing players by video”, commented Pablo Longoria in an interview in Asturias. This does not mean that his house in Oviedo has four satellite dishes installed. Every week the young Asturian coach records himself around 160 games, of which he sees “seven or eight” every day.

But, what has been said, does not incorporate any footballer without first having seen him several times live. His contact agenda is as wide as his passport has stamps, and to that, because he is not the only scouting in Spanish football that was kicking stadiums here and there every weekend.

Longoria, who was in the stands of the Stade de France on the day of the attacks in Paris, passed through Valencia being the right hand of Mateo Alemany and Marcelino in the field of soccer player monitoring. The Asturian, who served as director of the Technical Area, coordinated the work, trips and reports of Vicente Rodríguez, Domingo Cataoria, Jorge López and Salva Grau at Mestalla between February 2018 and September 2019.

Longoria signed Racic and Yunus for Valencia

The Asturian left his stamp in Mestalla with the signings of Racic, Yunus, Manu Vallejo, Koba, Jorge Saenz, Piccini, Diakhaby and Maxi. The first two have proven their worth under the orders of Javi Gracia. The Serbian midfielder was Longoria's first signing in Valencia. He came from the Red Star in exchange for 2,200,000 euros and after leaving on loan to Tenerife and Famalicão has made a hole in the center of the field of the Valencia. Meanwhile he Yunus, one of Valencia's positive surprises, came to Mestalla for free after leaving the lower ranks of Arsenal. The winger only needed a year in which he played in the youth team of Valencia and the subsidiary to make the jump to the first team. Both are valued at 10 million euros by the specialized portal Transfermarkt.