marker in detecting a top talent."

Armed with his ever-expanding library of player data and invigorated by the experience of working alongside Mourinho, Campos left Madrid for Monaco in 2013, initially acting as an advisor to club president Vadim Vasilyev and then, in August 2014, becoming technical director. (He also—briefly—tried his hand at international football in 2014, working as an opposition scout for the Argentinian national team at the World Cup in Brazil.)

Campos' change of job title coincided with a sharp shift in Monaco's recruitment strategy. The club spent lavishly in the 2013 summer transfer window—shelling out around €150 million on proven stars including Radamel Falcao, James Rodriguez and Joao Moutinho—but the following year, owner Dmitry Rybolovlev decided such huge expenditure was unsustainable. It was then that Campos cameinto his own.

Using his extensive networks, he set about assembling a squad of up-and-coming young players, all of whom had significant resale value. Bernardo Silva came in from Benfica for €15.75 million, Tiemoue Bakayoko from Rennes for €8 million, Fabinho from Rio Ave for €6 million, Lemar from Caen for €4 million and Benjamin Mendy from Marseille for €13 million. All would later be sold for vastly higher fees.

Campos had left for Lille by the time Leonardo Jardim's Monaco team romped to the title and reached the Champions League semi-finals in 2017, fired by the goals of Falcao and youth-team graduate Mbappe, but his fingerprints were all over their success. The players he brought to Stade Louis II would help the club to generate close to €1 billion