The Oligarchs’ Derby

For a while, Pablo Longoria had a nickname. As the best nicknames do, it caught on because it worked. Longoria was young, but he looked even younger. And his route into professional soccer’s executive ranks from Asturias, in northern Spain, had been unorthodox. He had honed his scouting acumen as a teenager by hours spent on various computer games. So they called him what he was: Niño De La Play — The PlayStation Kid.

At one point, soccer would have held that outsider status against him. Now, though, there is no longer a tightly defined, strictly controlled entry policy to the game’s backstage areas. Regardless of playing experience, any earnest striver, compulsive observer or slick charlatan can barge in the door. All it takes is enough persistence, self-belief and chutzpah.

Longoria’s story suggests he has all of those in abundance. By his own account, he set up a website to analyze players when he was 12, which is both unusual and the most 12-year-old thing imaginable. At 16, he wrote to clubs across Europe offering his services. Newcastle United, one of three to respond, showed him the proper form for completing scouting reports.

He did not stop there. He got a job as an analyst for Recreativo de Huelva, a venerable, cash-strapped team in Spain’s deep south. He worked for Newcastle, apparently, though it is not clear for how long and for what purpose. He built enough of a network to become a scout for the Italian side Atalanta.

By the time Longoria was 34, his résumé was positively glittering. He had been the head of recruitment at Sassuolo. He had been chief scout at Juventus and sporting director of Valencia before taking the latter role at Marseille. A little more than two years later, he earned a promotion: In 2021, he was appointed president of what is — historically — France’s biggest club.

Beyond his experience, Longoria did not have any actual qualifications for any of those jobs. A few bad decisions and he might have been dismissed as a self-generated myth, his lack of a playing career held up as conclusive evidence for his failure. The entrance to soccer may be open to anyone, after all, but so is the exit.

That Longoria has only risen, then, is testament to the fact that he appears to be good at his work. Very good. At Marseille, he has recruited a mix of reliable Ligue 1 stalwarts, aging castoffs and promising youngsters, and placed them at the service of Igor Tudor, a manager whose appointment was so underwhelming that he was jeered by his own fans simply for taking the job.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/24/sports/soccer/olympiacos-panathinaikos-greece.html