President of Cristal regarding signings: “it's very easy to pretend for the best, when we're not the best”

Joel Raffo, president of Sporting Cristal, announced his stance on the club's signings for the 2022 season and explained the arguments taken into account when deciding on the formation of the squad.

To face Liga 1 and the group stage of the Copa Libertadores, the celestial club decided on the signings of Leandro Sosa, Fernando Pacheco, John Jairo Mosquera and Yoshimar Yotún, among others.

The top manager of the 'beer' squad analysed the reality of Peruvian football with respect to the region when asked about the incorporations and the budget allocated for this purpose.

“We have to start on the basis that we are at the sporting and economic level relegated to the level of South America. So, everything goes uphill. It is very important to keep this reality in mind because it is very easy to pretend to have the best, when at the regional level we are not the best,” said Raffo in statements to Cristal's press area.

The president of the celeste club weighed the evaluation criteria for the recruitment of footballers for the professional squad in accordance with the technical command led by Roberto Mosquera.

“Within our reality we have a series of options and we had a series of options for each of the reinforcements that were established in sports planning and finally we ended up deciding between the options we had out of conviction and conviction, and not because of an economic issue as many say. Because he believed in the style, form and determined contribution that a certain footballer was going to give to a certain area of the field, to the team, to the contribution not only to sports, but with everything behind it for the technical command and sports management to maintain a very healthy group with a spirit of collaboration between all”.

In addition, the director of Cristal mentioned that it is important to respect the adaptation processes and the timing according to the institution's project.

“In football, as in any other industry, you can't foresee everything. There are a number of situations that are not entirely foreseen and there may be different behaviors. We see it in the best teams in the world that for various reasons there is no adequate adaptation, if there is one it takes a little longer. There are processes and you have to know how to respect that. In some cases there is a lot of learning, because we are not going to do everything perfectly. There are situations where you are at a crossroads or in a very difficult situation to deal with and you make the best decision at that moment or within the possibilities of the moment. Then in retrospect one says 'I could have done this or the other', but at that moment it is very difficult to predict because later you will have more information. Certain situations have definitely helped us a lot to be able to make decisions in the future,” he concluded.

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