Sevilla are suddenly in crisis, and the departure of their brilliant transfer wizard after 26 years leaves an enormous hole to fill at the Sánchez Pizjuán
On Sunday afternoon Ramón Rodríguez Verdejo did something he had only done once before and hasn’t done for almost 20 years: he hid from Sevilla supporters at the Sánchez Pizjuán. Just before midnight on 10 September 1997, ‘Monchi’ watched a late lob fly over him into the net, allowing tiny Isla Cristina to knock them out of the cup, and fans were so furious that the kitman smuggled him out in the back of his van, the defeated keeper covering his face whenever he pulled up at the lights and his coach briefly even removing him from the bench because that was the line of fire. Two decades later, as his club faced Sporting Gijón, he shied away for very different reasons, quietly taking up a discreet seat away from his normal position. “I wanted them to get used to the idea that I’m not around any more,” he said.
It won’t be easy. The son of a joiner in the shipyards of San Fernando, Cádiz, Monchi had been at Sevilla for 26 years before he announced his departure last week. A team-mate of Diego Maradona, Diego Simeone and Davor Suker, Toni Polster too, he played in the B team and over 100 times for the first team, making his debut against Real Sociedad and refusing to go off after Dalian Atkinson’s shot broke his finger in the first minute, an injury still visible, but that’s not why there were tears in his eyes; it’s not why there were tears in theirs, too. Monchi briefly studied law and, considering how long he was there, only occasionally kept goal. It’s not what he did on the pitch that mattered, but off it. As a player, usually a sub, he describes himself as “the last monkey” at Sevilla but became the most important man there.
Related: The secret behind Sevilla’s success? Meet Monchi, the transfer wizard
When Monchi took over Sevilla were in the second division … they spent nothing, won the division and the rest is history
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