Carlos Aviña, Mexican Sporting Director at Monaco, Leads Offer for Cruz Azul's Erik Lira

A Mexican name is starting to make noise in the hallways of European soccer, and it doesn't belong to a player. It's Carlos Aviña, sporting director at Monaco, who has emerged as the key figure behind an offer the French club submitted to Cruz Azul for Erik Lira, the midfielder who turned heads at the last World Cup in 2026.

Aviña's story with the Monegasque club isn't a matter of a couple of months. He arrived in August 2023 to take over the sporting direction, and since then he's built a network of contacts and decisions that now put him right at the center of this negotiation with La Maquina. That a Mexican is pulling the strings for another Mexican is a curious detail in its own right, the kind that adds flavor to this sort of transfer.

From the Eagles to Belgium: the path that brought him here

To understand why Aviña carries so much weight in deals like this, you have to look back. It all started in December 2015, when he joined America as strategic planning manager, a role he held until May 2017. From there he moved into the sporting development area, where he stayed within the Eagles' structure until August 2020: nearly five years fully immersed in scouting intelligence, recruitment and planning.

That stretch was no small thing. With America, Aviña was part of four titles: the Apertura 2018 Liga MX championship, the Copa MX Clausura 2019, the 2018-2019 Campeon de Campeones and the 2015-2016 Concacaf Champions League. That's where he built much of the reputation that later opened doors for him in Europe.

The jump to the European continent came in September 2020, when he took over as sporting director of Cercle Brugge, in Belgium. He stayed there until July 2023, nearly three years in which the club held steady among the top ten in its domestic league and earned a reputation for fielding one of the youngest squads on the continent. It was right after that Belgian stint that he signed with Monaco, the post he still holds today.

That track record now puts him at the center of a negotiation that could change the course of Erik Lira's career. The offer is already on Cruz Azul's table, and Aviña's own path, from America to Europe, goes a long way toward explaining why Monaco trusts his judgment on moves like this one.