VÍCTOR ORTA: "HANNIBAL IS MATURE BEYOND HIS YEARS"

Víctor Orta faced the media during Hannibal Mejbri's unveiling as a Sevilla FC player. First of all, our sporting director shared the background behind his pursuit of our new loan signing: "I've known about him for a long time. We scouted Hannibal when he was playing for Manchester United's U-18s during my time in England. He has matured a lot since then, but even as a 16-year-old they we were willing to pay 10 million euros. We have an option to buy, something I hope we can go through with if the player does well."

Turning his attention to Isaac Romero's performance in Getafe last night: "Isaac Romero signed a new contract moved up to the first team We made a joint decision between the president, the sport director and the coach. Maybe we were wrong, maybe we were right... but nobody has the crystal ball to know what would have happened with Isaac. It was a decision that was taken and from now when making such decisions, we can view them with a glass half full, as he truly belongs to the first team."

On the possibility of some players being named in Spain's provisional squad for the Olympic Games, Orta pointed out that he "talk[s] to Santi Denia quite a lot and it's true that he follows our youth players a lot. He also did it with the U21s and I'm sure there will be players in that squad list because I know he follows us a lot and our personal relationship means we exchange information that I hope will be useful". Speaking of players, he also referred to Rafa Mir: "We are not aware of any official offer for Rafa Mir. In the summer it's true that there was interest, but Corona [Valencia's sporting director] didn't come to make an offer."

"We always have an eye on the market"

In this regard, and when assessing the market in general, our sporting director pointed out that "for now there has only been interest, there have been no official offers. There is not much movement in the European market at the moment and I don't know if that means that in the last 10 days things could start happening." In the same way, he said that we must always remain alert to potential opportunities in the market: "Now we have 25 enlisted first-team players, which limits us in terms of bringing in new faces, but we have to be attentive and if we find a good option we will definitely evaluate it." 

After being asked about the possibility of contract renewals, something he sees as difficult in the January window, he responded to the question by focusing on his satisfaction with progress on transfers: "I'm pretty satisfied. A lot of the plans we finalised together with president on December 20th are coming into fruition, what has not happened hasn't been down to us. I am really satisfied with the market and it is still only January 17th, which gives us plenty of time until the 30th to try to continue improving the team and give more options to the coaching staff."

"We sporting directors are there to make the coach's life easier, to be at their side and help them."

"Los directores deportivos estamos para enriquecer el trabajo de los entrenadores, estar a su servicio"

Orta spoke about not wanting to get into assessing his own personal performances since June but he also spoke about our head coach and his feelings on the squad. “He (Quique) speaks about details and contractual situation. He is focused on training and preparing for games. Quique has improved us since he’s come in and we work well together with him. Sporting directors are here to enrich the work of the coaches, to be at their service. It's a enjoyable challenge to be able to help the coach with my work and our collective work in the January transfer market.” 

To finish, he spoke about Rakitic: “I have known Iván for many years and have a good relationship with him and he’s experienced enough to know that football has highs and lows and these are difficult times. I know he knows how to get though this, he came here and relaunched his career after arriving from Germany and I am sure he will be able to get back and help the team.”