Sevilla and the Science of Soccer’s Summer Transfer Window

It is the third deal, though, that is perhaps most significant, that had the greatest impact on how Sevilla works in the transfer market today.

On Aug. 31, 2005, at 10:30 p.m., Monchi’s phone rang. Real Madrid, he was told, had paid the release clause in the contract of Sevilla’s young, locally reared defender Sergio Ramos.

Monchi had thought it “impossible” that Ramos would leave, so he and his team had not been scouting for central defenders. “We used to only work on finding new players for the positions that we thought we had to strengthen,” he said. With only a few minutes left to find a replacement before the transfer window closed, he had “nothing on my list, so I threw it to fate.”

He called a few contacts. Someone in Belgium, someone he trusted, recommended a Serb named Ivica Dragutinovic. Monchi had never seen him play. “I knew he was white, that’s it,” he said. He had nothing to lose. Sevilla bought him.

Dragutinovic spent seven years in Seville, winning six trophies. “We could have decided that all we should do is call that same person every time and ask for his recommendations,” Monchi said. “Or we could learn that we have to work more, to look in all positions, so that it never happens again.”

Scouting, and Rescouting

Sevilla’s scouts sit in an office on the second floor of the office building at the club’s training facility. In the summer, it tends to be quiet. Only a half-dozen desks are occupied. It is not exactly downtime, said Jesus Olivera, who coordinates the work of the team’s 10 full-time scouts, but the frenzy that envelops Monchi’s phone at this time of year does not really extend into this room. The scouts’ work already is done.

It started almost a year ago. At the start of the season, each scout is given his assignments: one major league (France, Italy, Brazil, Germany and so on) to cover forensically; two leagues from the second tier (countries like Poland, Colombia) to monitor more cursorily; and a handful of minor nations (Peru, Bolivia) where, as Olivera said, “most of the best players will be in the youth national teams or playing in continental competition, so we just watch those.”