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Sevilla FC can confirm that Sporting Director, Ramón Rodríguez Verdejo, Monchi, has left the club, thus ending his second spell in charge of the club’s sporting management, which began in April 2019 after his time at AS Roma.
In just over four years, the San Fernando native carried out a major overhaul of the squad and opted for Julen Lopetegui at the helm. Despite having to deal with the pandemic midway through the season, the team ended up lifting its sixth UEFA Europa League in Cologne and returning, also via the league, to the UEFA Champions League for the 2020/21 season. The second season also saw the club’s all-time record points tally in the top flight.
In the 2021/22 season, the club achieved three consecutive seasons in the UEFA Champions League via the league for the first time, as well as Yassine Bono becoming the first Sevilla FC goalkeeper to win the Zamora Trophy (goalkeeper who concedes the least amount of goals in LaLiga).
In the 2022/23 season, which marks the end of Monchi’s second spell as head of sporting management, the team managed to lift their seventh UEFA Europa League in their seventh final, following a difficult season that saw three coaches, but in which, under José Luis Mendilibar, the squad managed to get back on track and once again qualify for the 2023/24 UEFA Champions League as a Pot 1 side.
Monchi joined Sevilla FC as an academy player in the summer of 1987 to feature for Sevilla’s reserve side, Sevilla Atlético. He made his first-team debut in the 1990/91 season, and stayed at Sevilla FC until his retirement in 1998/99. The following season, he was the first-team delegate, and was appointed Sporting Director in April 2000.
In 2000/01, the main objective of returning to the top flight at the first attempt was achieved, and, after two top-half finishes, the team returned to Europe just three seasons after being in the second tier, with a sixth-place finish in the 2003/04 season securing UEFA Cup football. Two seasons later, the team won the 2005/06 UEFA Cup, marking not only Monchi’s first title as a Sporting Director, but the end of the club’s 58-year trophy drought.
In the eleven years that followed, until his 2017 move to AS Roma, he would go on to win another four UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League titles, two Copas del Rey, one Spanish Super Cup and one UEFA Super Cup.
