Bryan Gil Returns To Olympiacos Shortlist As Mendilibar Preference | OneFootball

Pedro Bigas of Elche CF and Bryan Gil of Girona FC battle for possession during the LaLiga EA Sports match between Girona FC and Elche CF at Montilivi Stadium on May 23, 2026 in Girona, Spain. (Photo by Pedro Salado/Getty Images)

Olympiacos’ rebuild has moved quickly enough that the individual transfers are beginning to reveal a coherent idea. Remo Freuler gives the midfield experience and control. Nair Tiknizyan adds an aggressive attacking full-back. Armando González is the major investment at striker. Cristian Cásseres remains the leading candidate to add athleticism centrally.

Now Olympiacos are turning seriously toward the left wing. And José Luis Mendilibar appears to have chosen somebody he knows extremely well. SPORT24 reports that Mendilibar has spoken directly with Bryan Gil, confirmed that the Spanish winger would now be willing to join Olympiacos, and placed him at the top of the club’s left-wing recruitment list.

The crucial change is Gil’s willingness

Olympiacos have liked Bryan Gil before. That was never really the difficult part. The player’s preference was.

Earlier in his career, public Spanish reporting indicated that Gil preferred remaining in one of Europe’s major western leagues rather than moving to Greece. The new SPORT24 report says Mendilibar personally checked that issue before restoring the player to the top of the list.

According to Nikos Kotsis, the coach received the positive response he needed. That is a meaningful change.

Olympiacos do not want another Salah-Eddine-type pursuit where significant time is spent convincing a player who remains uncertain about Greece.

If Gil genuinely wants the move, the transaction becomes primarily a negotiation with Girona.

Mendilibar’s history with Gil lowers one important kind of recruitment risk

Every transfer contains unknowns. How does the player train? How does he respond when dropped? Can he execute the coach’s pressing demands? Does he understand tactical instructions quickly? How does he react to a demanding personality?

With Gil, Mendilibar already knows many of those answers.

The two worked together at Eibar and Sevilla, and SPORT24 describes Gil as one of the coach’s long-standing transfer preferences. Olympiacos are trying to integrate multiple players at once. Signing somebody who already understands the manager’s football can reduce the adaptation burden considerably.

The winger profile also makes tactical sense

Gil is a left-footed wide attacker whose game is built more around manipulation, dribbling and combination than pure straight-line power. That could give Olympiacos something different. Jota Silva offers vertical running.

Gelson Martins provides direct dribbling and transition threat. Joel Roca is developing.

Gil could give Mendilibar another player capable of receiving wide, beating the first defender and then connecting with midfielders or an overlapping full-back. That becomes especially interesting now that Tiknizyan is arriving.

Gil and Tiknizyan could create a very aggressive left side

Imagine the basic structure. Gil receives toward the touchline. Tiknizyan overlaps. The opposing full-back has two decisions:

stay with Gil and allow Tiknizyan outside;

or follow Tiknizyan and leave Gil isolated against a midfielder or winger.

If Gil moves inside onto his stronger left foot, Tiknizyan can supply width. If Gil stays outside, Tiknizyan can attack the half-space.

Those complementary movements can create the type of two-versus-one situations Olympiacos need against deep domestic blocks.

It would also place even more responsibility on the midfield

There is a pattern to Olympiacos’ recruitment. Rodinei attacks. Tiknizyan attacks.

Potentially Gil attacks aggressively from the left. That raises the team's attacking ceiling. It also makes defensive balance even more important.

When possession is lost, somebody has to protect those advanced full-back positions. That helps explain why the Freuler signing and Cásseres pursuit make increasingly more sense alongside the wide-player targets.

The recruitment pieces connect.

€6–8m is a very interesting price point

SPORT24 says Spanish estimates place Girona’s demands around €6–8m. That is meaningful money. But it is considerably below the numbers Olympiacos have been discussing for Puerta, Cásseres and González. At 25, Gil also retains enough career runway that the club would not be acquiring a declining asset.

The risk is performance rather than age.

His recent Girona production does introduce caution

Gil’s previous Girona campaign was inconsistent. Cadena SER’s Girona coverage noted that during 2025/26 he had struggled to translate his talent into final-third production, recording zero goals and three assists across 26 appearances at the time of its May report, while also dealing with an injury interruption.

Olympiacos would not be acquiring a winger coming off a dominant scoring season. They would be betting that Mendilibar can recover a version of Gil that he has already extracted before. That makes this partly a tactical rehabilitation play.

Which is exactly why the coach’s conviction matters

If a recruitment department independently proposed Gil after an inconsistent season, there would be legitimate questions. Mendilibar knows the player firsthand. He knows what Gil looked like when functioning well. And, according to SPORT24, he is the person pushing hardest for the move.

That does not guarantee success.

But it provides a clearer thesis: Olympiacos are not buying the recent statistical output. They would be buying the possibility that Mendilibar can restore the player he already knows.

The current Girona situation may create an opening without making the deal easy

Gil is still playing. He started Girona’s league opener and stayed on for 68 minutes in the 1–1 draw with Leganés.

So Olympiacos cannot approach this as a simple unwanted-player transaction.

Girona have sporting use for him. They will need to be compensated.

SPORT24 does note, however, that Olympiacos believe their existing relationship with Girona—strengthened through the recent Joel Roca transaction—can help discussions.

It is not the same thing as Girona having agreed to sell.

The most interesting development is that this looks coach-driven

After the NEC elimination, Olympiacos publicly recommitted to Mendilibar and promised to recruit players with his approval. The González pursuit appears to reflect that. So does Freuler. Now Gil does too.

That means the next version of Olympiacos is increasingly becoming Mendilibar’s roster, not simply a club squad he happens to coach. If the club gives him players he personally identifies, the margin for arguing that the squad does not suit his football becomes smaller.

Gil could become one of the most revealing signings of the rebuild

Not because he is the biggest name. Because this would be one of the clearest tests of the coach’s talent evaluation.

Mendilibar knows him.

Mendilibar wants him.

Mendilibar has spoken to him.

Gil has reportedly said yes to the idea. Now Moncada has to determine whether the transfer itself makes financial sense. At €6–8m, that is a very different question from merely asking whether Bryan Gil is talented.

The talent has never really been the dispute. The question is whether Olympiacos can recover enough of it consistently. And José Luis Mendilibar apparently believes he can.