Ramón Rodríguez 'Monchi', sports director who left Sevilla a week ago to sign for English Aston Villa, declared this Friday, in his farewell to the Seville club, that "I hope" his departure "was a nightmare", which would mean that he would not it "would be leaving here".
"This is a nightmare and someone is going to come pinch me to show me that this is not real, that I am not leaving Sevilla. I have no tears left to shed. Unfortunately, it is a reality and I will tell the reasons why I am leaving to defend my image and my integrity", said Monchi visibly moved in an act organized by the club in the anteroom of the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán stadium with the presence, among others, of the entity's president, José Castro.
The coach from the Cadiz town of San Fernando considered "it is fair that it counts" what has moved him to leave "because otherwise, he would not be able to look people in the face" who have suffered alongside him "during this very complicated season ", although he asked that "nobody dare to use what is said here today as a thrown weapon or to attack anyone."
Monchi summarized, before the journalists' question time, his position with the intention of "making three things very clear", that his "will was not to leave Sevilla" but that he is leaving "out of respect for Sevilla and not for money". , since his emoluments in Birmingham "will be more or less the same" as in the Andalusian capital, although it will be necessary to discount "what Aston Villa has paid to resolve" his contract.
In his long list of thanks, the executive wanted to make "a very special one to the fans of Gol Norte", where the most radical fans sit, "because when it rained the most, and it has rained cloth, that flag" with his "face did not has stopped waving", which "makes him very proud", because "had he not been a sports director, he would have been a Sevilla ultra".
Monchi explained that his departure is due to the intention of the leaders to "modify the model" of sports management with "another idea that hopefully works better" but that his is to be "a reference" in everything, "in the management of the day to day", a facet in which he is "good", not so much "in signing players", for which he relies more on his work team.
"A billardista like me thinks that the successes are in the small details. If the club considers that some things have to be changed, which is legitimate, it is better not to continue. I need some weapons that I was not going to have. For good and for The bad thing, I'm Monchi. If I wasn't one hundred percent like I am, it's better not to be. The easy thing was to be half of Monchi, charging as the whole Monchi, but it wasn't fair," he said.
The Cádiz coach recalled that "in 2019", when he returned after two years at AS Roma, "he was the happiest person in the world. He had a pre-agreement for Arsenal to win three more times but he came home convinced" that it would be your last employment destination.
He added that he has "fought internally until the last second to continue at Sevilla. Last Wednesday morning, I was convinced that I would stay at Sevilla" but on Friday he announced his departure, Monchi regretted.
Once his separation was decided, his "first idea was to go to San Fernando to rest for five or six months, live a little without the pressure of Sunday", but that "the Aston Villa project appeared, which is growing and there is a person -Unai Emery, coach with whom he spent four years at Sevilla-", who "has encouraged him to go".
All in all, Monchi was of the opinion that "Sevilla is in very good hands", since "the hiring of Víctor Orta is a great success", although with his successor it is "little objective because" they are "friends after having lived together for seven years", between 2006 and 2013, when the Madrid coach worked under him at the Seville club.
The event was opened by the president of Sevilla, who stressed that Monchi is "history" of the club and that he deserved to go "through the front door" in a farewell at his home, in relation to the Sánchez-Pizjuán stadium.
