The interest in him was great at Schalke, but Stefan Ortega finally decided to move to England. Recently, he gave the reasons.
It was only a few days ago that Stefan Ortega was the talk of England. Pep Guardiola went into raptures, and even in the pop Olympus there was a hymn of praise. Ortega, who moved to the island from Bielefeld in the summer, had enchanted Manchester last week – at least its light blue half.
The substitute goalkeeper had secured the 2:0 (0:0) victory over Chelsea FC in the League Cup and thus a place in the last 16. The 30-year-old deserved the “Man of the Match” award. “Ortega absolutely incredible”, sang Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher on Twitter. Chelsea had bounced off the Citizens’ “wonderwall” time and again.
What would have happened if Ortega had moved to FC Schalke04 instead of ManCity? As reported at the time, Schalke had also made efforts to sign Stefan Ortega last summer. However, the keeper had turned down the promotion and had moved to England on a free transfer from Arminia Bielefeld. Nevertheless, a possible move to FC Schalke 04 was “definitely a topic” for him.
Substitute at ManCity instead of number one at Schalke
But then his advisor named him another interested party, as Ortega recently told Sportbild. “We were just on the Rambla in Palma buying an ice cream,” he recalled of the holiday with his wife and daughter. “I always told my advisor beforehand: please don’t tell me about a club’s interest until it’s really concrete. And then he called me and named Manchester City.” What then spoke in favour of the move to England and against a commitment to Gelsenkirchen?
“The longer I thought about it, the stronger the feeling became: I want to try it at City. At this level, in another country, with another culture,” Ortega explained. So in the end Schalke 04 came up empty and dealt more intensively with Alexander Schwolow, who has since become the Königsblauen’s regular goalkeeper. At the Premier League club, meanwhile, Ortega is the backup to regular Ederson, and he has already made two appearances in the Champions League.
