{"id":71808,"date":"2026-08-17T18:36:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T18:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/71808\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T18:36:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T18:36:25","slug":"real-madrid-sells-ortega-and-strasbourg-recoups-cash-by-selling-enciso-ouattara-to-ipswich-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/71808\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Madrid sells Ortega and Strasbourg recoups cash by selling Enciso, Ouattara to Ipswich"},"content":{"rendered":"

STRASBOURG, France<\/a> (AP) \u2014 Real Madrid<\/a> sold center forward Jacobo Ortega<\/a> on Monday to French club Strasbourg<\/a>, which recouped more then five times the transfer fee by selling two players to Ipswich.<\/p>\n

Strasbourg, owned by Chelsea\u2019s holding company BlueCo, is under financial scrutiny from UEFA<\/a> and its 13 million euros ($15 million) fine in June for overspending was the biggest imposed by the European soccer body on any club last season. <\/p>\n

The 20-year-old Ortega cost a reported 10 million euros ($11.6 million) from Madrid to help replace Paraguay<\/a> forward Julio Enciso<\/a>, who left Strasbourg for newly-promoted Ipswich, where he spent time on loan two seasons ago when the club was last in the Premier League.<\/p>\n

Enciso started all five Paraguay games at the World Cup<\/a> and scored against Germany<\/a> in the round of 32. He also featured in an opening 4-1 loss to the United States<\/a> and a testy and aggressive 1-0 loss to France in the round of 16.<\/p>\n

Ipswich said it also signed Strasbourg’s 20-year-old midfielder Abdoul Ouattara<\/a>, with the two deals reportedly costing a combined 50 million euros ($58 million).<\/p>\n

Enciso and Ouattara signed five-year contracts, Ipswich said, and reunite with coach Gary O’Neil, who was at Strasbourg for the second half of last season.<\/p>\n

Strasbourg’s offseason transfer trading now shows a profit of about 80 million euros ($92 million), after being advised by UEFA to \u201csignificantly decrease\u201d player costs in 2026.<\/p>\n

Two significant sales have been to parent club Chelsea, who signed Strasbourg captain Emmanuel Emegha and Argentina<\/a> midfielder Valentin Barco<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Madrid did not provide any details about the deal for Ortega, who scored in the UEFA Youth League final against Club Brugge in Lausanne last season. After a 1-1 draw<\/a>, Madrid won the title \u2014 effectively the Champions League<\/a> for under-19 teams \u2014 in a penalty shootout.<\/p>\n

Strasbourg said Ortega, who never played for the Madrid first team, signed a five-year contract.<\/p>\n

The French club also signed U.S. midfielder Gio Reyna<\/a> from Borussia M\u00f6nchengladbach this month.<\/p>\n

Strasbourg reached the Conference League semifinals last season and placed eighth in Ligue 1, but did not qualify for any of UEFA’s European competitions.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full soccer coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STRASBOURG, France (AP) \u2014 Real Madrid sold center forward Jacobo Ortega on Monday to French club Strasbourg, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27890,4027,26024,556,865,2937,5237,27900,85,82,4240,26,17765],"class_list":["post-71808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-abdoul-ouattara","tag-argentina","tag-fifa-world-cup-2026-final-draw","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-international-friendlies","tag-jacobo-ortega","tag-julio-enciso","tag-laliga","tag-madrid","tag-paraguay","tag-united-states","tag-valentin-barco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}