AaronTheBlue
Player Valuation: £60m
Mori isn't that hard mate.
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I'm going to call him Ram Man, it's short for Ramiro. Plus, like the character from He Man he is slow and clumsy.
AaronTheBlue
Player Valuation: £60m
Jeff Waldrop still remembers the first time he saw Ramiro Funes Mori and his brother Rogelio run out on to his training field.
“He was about 5ft 5 and 120 lbs,” Waldrop, an Arlington High School soccer coach says of Ramiro, Everton's new £9.5million centre-half. “They were young, only 14, and they were tiny but they definitely had an outlandish amount of talent compared to all the other freshmen I had.”
It was purely by fortune that the brothers ended up in Waldrop’s presence, after their parents had decided to move to Texas in 2001.
Instantly slotting them into his team, Waldrop did not initially choose to use Ramiro in the position he now plays.
“For me he was a defensive central-midfielder [at that time],” he explains. “He could do that and score goals. He was doing all the hard work in the middle, starting the counter attacks. He could be offensive-minded if he wanted to be.”
A young Ramiro Funes Mori
From that position he was integral to the team's success. During the 2008 season he racked up 14 goals and 17 assists as Waldrop's charges recorded an astonishing 12 victories in 13 games.
A central component to that side, Waldrop is eager to stress that Ramiro's excellence was down to more than just raw talent.
“It was the work ethic too,” he says. “We'd finish a two-hour drill and we’d head inside and he’d go back out there with his father and work on even more things.
“They would want to borrow the free-kick dummies so they could work on that after practice. Their dad always wanted to work on something a little bit extra and they didn't ever complain about it.”
Then, during 2008, a number of Waldrop's players – including the brothers – entered a reality show known as 'Sueno MLS'.
A contest organised by Major League Soccer, it was intended to give young players a place at an MLS academy - in this case FC Dallas.
As many of Waldrop's players fell by the wayside, the brothers remained. Both made it to the final of the competition, with Rogelio ultimately taking the first-place prize.
Left to right: Ramiro Funes Mori, Jeff Waldrop & Rogelio Funes Mori.
But, although it was the striker Rogelio who took the plaudits and the trophy, both Funes Mori brothers had caught the eye of the coaches and scouts at the Toyota Stadium.
“[With Ramiro], we saw character and talent there with that left foot,” Oscar Pareja, current head coach of FC Dallas states. “He dominated the category very well. The size of him was something we liked very well and the intensity he had during games and training. We didn't doubt he could be a professional.”
Pareja was eager to extend the brothers' stay at the club, but ran into problems. “At the time our system here was not as mature as it is right now and we couldn't hold them,” he says, ruefully. “We had to decide whether to sign these kids to the first team or not. We didn't have a second division team or a structure that could hold them and so we had to let them go.”
It wasn't all bad news for the brothers though. Upon hearing of interest from homeland giants River Plate, the family returned to their native Argentina. And, after impressing coaches at the club's academy, they were both signed towards the end of 2008.
Patience would be the order of the day from there for Ramiro. Three years in the club's academy was the precursor to him making his debut in 2011, during what was an incredibly difficult period for one of the country's most historic and successful clubs. Indeed, almost inexplicably given their track record, River found themselves suffering a devastating relegation to the second division.
They spent, however, just one season in the 'B-League' and completed a dramatic and somewhat cathartic turnaround they then were crowned Argentina's champions for the 36th time in 2014.
By that stage, Ramiro was starting to establish himself in the team and, having made 19 appearances during their promotion season, he would be a key figure for Los Millionarios right up until his departure for Goodison Park.
Among the highlights, he netted the winner against fierce rivals Boca Juniors in March 2014 - their first win at Boca’s La Bombonera for 10 years. In fact, it could easily be argued his time at River has been defined by two important headers; that one against Boca and one just weeks ago in the 3-0 Copa Libertadores final win against Tigres of Mexico.
Add his first international cap against El Salvador back in March - and Argentina boss Gerardo Martino calling him "the future of the national team" during a recent interview with ESPN radio – and 2015 has been some year for Ramiro to date.
Now he prepares for another challenge in the Premier League with Everton, where manager Roberto Martinez is already fixed on honing that star quality coach Waldrop first spotted well over a decade ago.
“He is a left-footed centre-half - a really good defender who is exceptional in the air with good quality. He will give us great balance in the back-four," said Martinez of his new acquisition. "He feels that coming to Everton is the perfect step in his career and coming to the Barclays Premier League is going to give him the type of football that he wants to be tested in.
"At 24, he's been called up by Argentina and there's a little bit of a change of generation in the national team. You see [Nicolas] Otamendi, who has just signed for Manchester City, and Ramiro - both could be the future of the national team.
"That he can do that, within the environment and protection of ourselves, is something that really excites me."
That's like calling Di Maria just Maria though.
AaronTheBlue
Player Valuation: £60m
THEN STOP MOANING LAD!!!1
BoysInBlue
Player Valuation: £50m
Heard a rumour that Mori likes Corrie, and that his dad drives a lorry.
The atmosphere's proper mad there.
As is the aggression. Funes is a proper snide though.
Tbh that atmosphere makes the Merseyside Darby look tame
Looks a crackin derby that like.
Passion.
Aggression.
Violence.
Atmosphere.
The lad's really gonna love Goodison......sake.
Some negative comments by our own fans on here.
Give this lad a chance he may well prove you wrong.
For years Ive watched teams pick up these type of players from South America for button's that go on to be super players & worth a lot of money, Porto seem to do this year after year. Martinez signs one & the moans start before he's even kicked a ball here. Suppose we should have signed Caulker or James Chester.
Like most of us I've not seen too much of the lad but what I have seen is player with obvious talent yet still young enough to make the odd mistake (dont they all).
Looks like he can handle himself as well , I think this lad could be a great signing for us . Certainly gets my backing...give him a chance eh.
Give this lad a chance he may well prove you wrong.
For years Ive watched teams pick up these type of players from South America for button's that go on to be super players & worth a lot of money, Porto seem to do this year after year. Martinez signs one & the moans start before he's even kicked a ball here. Suppose we should have signed Caulker or James Chester.
Like most of us I've not seen too much of the lad but what I have seen is player with obvious talent yet still young enough to make the odd mistake (dont they all).
Looks like he can handle himself as well , I think this lad could be a great signing for us . Certainly gets my backing...give him a chance eh.
bluestevon
Player Valuation: £80m
Hahahahaha..... like it stevo.
Saint Domingo
Player Valuation: £90m
Agreed mate, we've just signed a full Argentine international getting into the same squad as Otamendi, Garay and Rojo, yet some people are trying to make out we've taken a punt on a pub player. It's incredibly disrespectful to some of the other league's out there that there is an immediate assumption he'll be rubbish just because he is from Argentina. For some people though unless you've got that blubbering fool Merson calling him a 'top top player' on sky sports they're not interested And won't give him a chance.
whiteshadow
Player Valuation: £20m
I think he's going to be a great signing for us. He's going to give us a goal scoring threat from corners and set pieces, which we're presently pretty bad at.
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