Emotional, fiery, passionate, a trigger-happy tendency to shoot from the hip, but underpinned by a deep-seated, entrenched love of football. Victor Orta’s temperament and character produced the best of times and the worst of times at Leeds United.
Marcelo Bielsa’s appointment, Orta’s finest achievement, would not have happened without the director of football’s desire to take unorthodox paths, less trodden and outside the box of conventional thinking. As he sat in the back of that taxi with Andrea Radrizzani, it might have been easier to look at a Slavisa Jokanovic or an Aitor Karanka, but he went big and landed United’s biggest fish in decades.
Yet, that same wish to be different would take Orta to some dark places in the transfer market. Regardless of the mechanics behind the deal before and after his arrival, Jean-Kevin Augustin and Orta will be forever entwined as one of the worst transfers in football history.
