This Monday evening, Pablo Longoria embarked on a unique exercise since he was the guest of the show Zack en roulette libre by Zack Nani on Twitch. For more than two hours, the president of OM took part in the game. He discussed various subjects, including his career as a recruiter at Juventus (between 2015 and 2018). And he admitted to having a huge regret since he failed to sign a certain Erling Haaland. His words are relayed by RMC Sport.
“For me there are three stories, no, we can say the failures, that we made as a club. It was Haaland at Juventus, and it’s even a personal failure that I always remember. I was at the Under-17 Euro in Croatia, I don’t remember the date but it was around 2015 or 2017 more or less (2017, editor’s note). It was in Croatia and it was the 2000 generation. I would never have noticed him in this European Championship but he was starting to break through in Molde. The person who followed the young people was Matteo Tognozzi and he is now sporting director at Granada, he always talked about Haaland, Haaland, Haaland… He talked about it a lot and he was 17 years old at Molde. I went to see him play once in Molde, he was strong. One day he (Erling Haaland’s father, editor’s note) came to Turin, we received him for a dinner Federico Cherubini and I with his father, there was a taboo it was to talk about Roy Keane. It was taboo with his father, we should definitely not talk about Roy Keane because at the time Erling Haaland was still the son of Alf-Inge Haaland and not the other way around. There comes a moment during the dinner when he asks what his career plan will be. At the time there was no second team at Juventus yet, there wasn’t much to offer. But it’s true that it’s something we worked on well there.” A failure that Longora still regrets today.