Former Manchester City academy player Rony Lopes has become the new addition to Sevilla’s squad. The Andalusian team, that finished 6th in La Liga table last season, paid €20M for Rony Lopes, who played in Monaco for the last 3 seasons.
Marcos ‘Rony’ Lopes was born in Belem, Para, in Brazil, but he moved to Portugal when he was 4 years old. He has a Brazilian father and a Portuguese mother, and when he moved to his mother’s homeland, his parents took him to play in local team Poiares. Here, Marcos became known as Rony, due to wearing to training a shirt of his idol Ronaldo Nazario (R9).
In 2006, he moved to Lisbon and started developing through the ranks of Benfica academy, until, four years later, Manchester City scouted the youngster and brought him to England. He broke through the main team of City in 2013, but he had not many chances to play, having only made five appearances and scored 1 goal.
Subsequently, he was loaned to Lille, in 2014/15, where the attacking midfielder impressed, with 3 goals in 27 appearances. ‘Rony’, who can also play as a winger and is a versatile player who can adapt to most attacking positions, was then bought permanently by AS Monaco in 2015.
Since then, the now 23-year-old played in 82 matches for the Ligue 1 side, scoring 21 goals and making 14 assists. Last season, Monaco was almost relegated, but Rony still managed 4 goals and 2 assists, besides having been on the sidelines for a while due to an adductor injury.
Spending spree in Sevilla
After the arrival of former FC Porto, Real Madrid and Spain head coach Julen Lopetegui to Sevilla FC, the club has been in a spending spree and have already announced 10 new players. The most expensive of the batch was Jules Kounde, a young defender from Bordeaux, who arrived for €25M.
Diego Carlos (center back, Nantes, €20M), Munas Dabbur (striker, RB Salzburg, €15), Lucas Ocampos (left-winger, Marseille, €15M), Joan Jordan (midfielder, Eibar, €14M), Luuk de Jong (striker, PSV , €12,50M), Oliver Torres (attacking midfielder, FC Porto, €12M) and Fernando (defensive midfielder, Galatasaray, €4,5M) complete the list.
To the 8 names already mentioned, we should also add the loans of Sergio Reguilon (left-back from Real Madrid) and Gudelj, Serbian midfielder, who arrives on a free transfer from Chinese club GZ Evergrande.
Meanwhile, in the other way, they paid the favor to Monaco by selling to them their target man, Wissam Ben Yedder, for €40M. They also sold Sarabia to PSG, Quincy Promes to Ajax and Luis Muriel to Atalanta.
All in all, these signings come from the return of Monchi, as sporting director of Sevilla. With La Liga schedule returning at the end of this week, it is worth to know if Sevilla will be back competing with the big 3, after an underwhelming campaign last season.
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