Funes Mori once trialled with Chelsea

, 14 September, 9comments  |  Jump to most recent
New defensive signing Ramiro Funes Mori admits that he once had a trial with Chelsea but eventually had to leave England without convincing the London club to sign him.

The defender, who made his debut as a substitute against the same club on Saturday, spent two weeks at Chelsea with his twin brother, Rogelio.

“It can be said that it’s my second spell at England – I did a trial for Chelsea a few years ago alongside with my twin brother,” the 24-year-old says in The Express. “We stayed at Chelsea for two weeks but had to leave because we didn’t have an European passport.

“Well, I still don’t have a European passport but Everton truly wanted me. So now I hope to be ready and get used to playing in the Premier League as soon as possible.”

Funes Mori also confirms speculation that Villarreal were interested in his services this summer but Roberto Martinez convinced him that Goodison Park was where he should play his football.

“I’m extremely happy to be here at Everton,” he continued. “This is a new adventure for me. Since I landed in Liverpool, Everton fans have showed me all their love even though they had not heard about me before.

“I’m so convinced about having moved to Everton. It’s true that Villarreal were after me too, but I didn’t even hesitate when Everton called me. Martinez told me that he trusts me.”

 

Reader Comments (9)

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Vijay Nair
1 Posted 15/09/2015 at 00:18:44
Welcome to Everton, Ramiro!!!
Anthony Dwyer
2 Posted 15/09/2015 at 02:04:00
Good luck, big man.
Ben Mackenzie
3 Posted 15/09/2015 at 08:25:35
Dodged a bullet there with Chelsea!
Jim Bennings
4 Posted 15/09/2015 at 09:12:37
You joined the right club Ramiro, and I hope John Stones paused on Saturday to just take in the atmosphere at Goodison.

John if your reading this, they wouldn't know an atmosphere like that at Stamford Bridge if it smacked them in the face lad!

You would be joining a classless club with classless Strictly Come Lately fans that would be giving you the dogs abuse after one bad game, not to mention the media who think Chelsea are as big as Barcelona and Real Madrid.

They are NOT!!

Harold Matthews
5 Posted 15/09/2015 at 09:39:12
Watched this lad a couple of times for River Plate. His name is not Mori. It's Funes Mori. I don't know Spanish but it sounds like Funaimori.

Big strong CB, good in the air with a specialist left foot. Keeps his position well but has one or two basic closing down and tackling faults which need to be ironed out. Still plenty of time for improvement, he'll learn the Premier League way from Jags and Stones but I wouldn't want him to start just yet. Says he ready to work hard and weekly training sessions against our speedy forwards will do him the power of good.

You probably get two thirds the finished article for £9.5M these days and Martinez must think he can make this lad a much better player than he already is. I hope he succeeds.

Paul Cherrington
6 Posted 15/09/2015 at 10:32:42
To be fair, the signs are promising with this lad so I hope he turns out as good as we hope. Good luck, big guy!
John Daley
7 Posted 15/09/2015 at 10:48:59
"Good in the air"

That’s the key thing he’ll (hopefully) be bringing to the table, for me. Jags and Stones, both individually and together as a partnership, have a lot of plus points but are often up against it when faced with high balls slung into the box. From what I’ve read about Funes Mori, this is one area in which he excels.

Similarly, ever since Lescott left, we’ve lacked someone who can come up from the back and get their head to a set piece in the opposition box. Okay, we had Fellaini, but there’s just something about a central defender connecting cleanly and powering a header home that I love to see. Maybe because it’s an unexpected/additional source of goals when the games are tight and your strikers are struggling to make the breakthrough.

Brian Cleveland
8 Posted 15/09/2015 at 15:54:37
Harold, yes, as I have mentioned on other threads, the Spanish convention is to have two surnames, the first being your paternal and the second maternal (women don't take their husbands name when they get married), so his surname is indeed Funes Mori. Often, just one is used informally, the paternal, so it would be Funes as opposed to Mori.

With respect to pronunciation, it really is said as you see it. If you hear it more like "FuneMori" it's because they have difficulty pronouncing some letter combinations, especially of consonants, because they don't occur in the language, so when they do, they just skip them rather than distort the mouth to get the tongue around the sound. But it generally only occurs in names such as this, or words imported from other languages. English is the most prevalent as it is heard more. For example Sprite is pronounced just Spry and Light is just Ly (ite sound is too hard!)

Anyway, here endeth the lesson! Shall we just call him Ramiro instead?

Harold Matthews
9 Posted 15/09/2015 at 20:32:39
Cheers Brian. You certainly know your stuff. My pronunciation was taken from the South American commentary who also called our boy "Importante grande", which sounds pretty positive.

It was the Copa De Libertadores final with River Plate leading 2-0. Everyone was happy but didn’t quite feel safe. They needed a third goal and Funes Mori duly obliged. Rising like a salmon to a corner, he sent a rocket header into the net.

The place went mad. Never seen anything like it Great stuff indeed. After a very nervy start, he certainly got his act together.


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