Manchester United’s head of academy Neil Cox has revealed how the club completed the signing of Alejandro Garnacho, even with the challenges of Covid.
The Argentine joined the club as a 16-year-old in October 2020, completing a move from Spanish giants Atletico Madrid. He helped the youth team win the FA Youth Cup in 2021/22, before making the step up to the first team that same season. Garnacho made his Premier League debut against Chelsea in April 2022. He scored his first league goal for the club in just his fifth appearance, netting a late winner against Fulham in November 2022.
Since then the now-19-year-old has been a regular in Erik ten Hag’s side. This season, Garnacho has scored five times in the Premier League, including a brace in the 3-0 win over West Ham. It was back in 2020 when United were on the lookout for a 16-year-old winger who could make an impact on the first team in the future – and Cox has revealed how Garnacho was identified as the right player.
“Our recruitment team profiled all the wide players of that age across Europe, comparing the talents and trying to identify which talent would be the one who would be the best fit for us as a football club,” he told the Sun. “Alejandro would have been at the top of that list. Gerardo Guzman, our academy scout in Spain, put Alejandro forward as the best talent available in Spain.”
The move took place during Covid, meaning that video calls were needed to convince the player to make the move. That brought its own challenges.
“I had to do that from my spare bedroom via video call, using a translator,” Cox added. “My boys at the time would have been 14 and 10 and I remember vividly that they were arguing with each other while I was trying to sign Alejandro. I still tell my boys now, had that argument rumbled on much longer then we probably wouldn’t have Alejandro Garnacho at Manchester United!”
Luckily, the argument in the background didn’t put Garnacho, or his parents, off moving to Manchester. The rest, they say, is history.