[ad_1]
After weeks of disappearance and disappearance, Quique Setien has made his debut since his dismissal as Barcelona manager following a disastrous 2-8 loss to Bayern Munich.
Setien, who had only managed Barcelona for half a season and then walked out the back door, spoke at length to the popular Spanish newspaper El País.
The dialogue took on a creamy spherical character, because the interlocutor was Vicente Del Bosque, the mythical coach of Real Madrid and Spain.
Setien spoke about his training as a player and his entry into the world of training, then he turned to talk about his brief and difficult stage at Barcelona, the difficulty of training Messi, the problems caused by his assistant Eder Sarabia , and their defeat against Bayern Munich.
Currently, Setién resides at his home in Cantabria, in northern Spain, where he was born and raised, and does not intend to leave anytime soon. Let’s quickly move on to the text of the rich dialogue.
At first, Del Bosque asked his counterpart, Setién, which team he had cheered on when he was young, and the response was shocking: “I cheered on the team that all the boys cheered on: Real Madrid.”
Setién began by recounting his beginnings as a player: “At the beginning of my career I played as a forward, but I was never a scorer, and over the years I ended up in midfield. Having lost my speed and the ability to advance, I became more smart to use my remaining weapons. “
He also spoke of Jesús Gil, the controversial president of Atlético de Madrid: “I joined Atlético de Madrid during Vicente Calderón’s reign and we had an extraordinary year, we played a European final against Dynamo Kiev and won 3-0. The president who has a place dear to me for his seriousness, integrity and being. With Jesus, the horses of change were radical, he was not aware of the world of football and he was very sharp ”.
Setien said: “I have always rebelled against injustice, and this has gotten me into a lot of trouble, but it has also brought me a lot of satisfaction.”
A great credit to Luis Aragonés: “I had 14 or 15 coaches during my career, and the one who influenced me the most was Luis Aragonés, because he made a violent change in my career. It was the first time I had a coach who cared about physical appearance. Racing de Santander was the one who developed me the most at all levels, although they trained me at thirty-two years old ”.
After his retirement, it was several years before Setien entered the world of coaching: “I thought it was difficult being a coach. I played beach soccer after retiring for 5 or 6 years, and then they offered me to coach races, I accepted and we got up. “.
He added: “My stage in Logo training was great, and I liked that I didn’t sign any contract except the first one, but everything was based on the word, and that’s when I started to feel like a coach.”
He appealed to the Barcelona coach: “My experience in Barcelona was exceptional, I had the opportunity to experience something extraordinary. I told the players that I had never been in a similar dressing room with the best players in the world.”
Setien recounts a detailed theory of locker room player behavior: “In 40 years with football as a player and coach, I have come to the conclusion that in the locker room you will have 16 to 18 players fully engaged. Then there are 4 or 5 players who are not so excited. They train well, but they only add if things go well, and if things go bad, they add up to nothing. Finally, you had a tricky and twisted player or two left over. This classification was obtained from the players as a player and as a coach, this happened in all teams, and it was clear to me. Always with maximum transparency, if a player does not participate and asks for justifications, I will tell him the reasons ”.
Messi
The most exciting part of the conversation was, of course, about Lionel Messi, who, despite the difficulty of training, Setien admitted that he was the best ever.
“I think Messi is the best player of all time,” Setien said. “Of course there were other great players, but the continuity of this fame that he enjoyed over the years was not enjoyed by any other player, except perhaps Pelé. I told him once that I waited 15 years.” Face Barcelona to see it. “
He continued: “Some players are very difficult to lead, and that is an inherent characteristic of them. As we saw in the documentary on Michael Jordan, you see things that you do not expect.”
He continued: “Messi does not express his thoughts, but at the same time forces you to see the things he wants, he does not speak much, but look.”
And he added: “After I left Barcelona, I think I had to make different decisions at times, but there is something higher than you, it is the club … the club is higher than the president, the player and the coach is the club and its fans. “
“There are millions of people who think that Messi, or any other player, is more important than the club or the coach. This player and those around him have won all the titles over 14 years,” he continued.
Former Barcelona manager Tata Martino once said that he told Messi: “I know you can call the president and have him knock me out.” So, did Setien experience that pressure?
The former Las Palmas and Betis coach replied: “I have heard this phrase before and others as well. I don’t need anyone to tell me what Tata Martino or another coach said, I just lived it all. I had enough experiences to fully evaluate how that is boy (Messi) and the rest of the players “. .
He admitted: “It is true that there are players who are not easy to lead, including Leo Messi, this is real. Furthermore, we must bear in mind that he is the best player of all ages, and who am I to change him? for years like it is and they didn’t try to change it. “
“When a player is used to winning, he gets nervous when he doesn’t win, and it hurts a lot,” he explained.
Idir sarabia
One of the crises that Setién faced in his short time at Barcelona, was his assistant Eder Sarabia, the bad-tempered one, who appeared in the Classic, insulting the players from the line and yelling at them.
Setien spoke of his right arm saying: “From day one, I explained to the players the nature of Eder, I told them that the first person I had to put up with was me. He is a boy who has tremendous energy and lives with football. with great intensity “. “Some levels, because I love him very much, and I also realize that he has great potential and this should be appreciated.”
He added: “He is an exceptional boy. The day the cameras caught him saying a few words, I told him that he should not show a similar image, and the next day I spoke to the team leaders and apologized, and they told me not to. It mattered if he yelled at them or asked for their attention. “
He continued: “I am not a person who relies on yelling, I have never been like that, but sometimes it is good for someone to yell to increase the intensity between the players. Even training should be like matches. So there are many who appreciate the personality of Idir “.
Was Setién normal in Barcelona? The former Racing and Atlético player responds decisively: “No, of course not, it wasn’t me, I couldn’t, or I didn’t know how to do it. The truth is that when you sign with a club as big as Barcelona, you you realize that things will not be easy even if you have the best players in the world. ” I couldn’t be myself and I didn’t do what I had to do. “
He admitted: “It is true that I could have made violent decisions, but decisions that would not have changed anything in the short period I spent with the team, especially in the stressful period after quarantine.”
He recalled what happened: “Until the stoppage by Corona, the team was going well, we were changing some things, and the activity stopped while we led the League by two points, with the return of the activity we started well against Mallorca, but the situation was it later got complicated and Real Madrid’s career was exceptional. “
He continued: “In fact, there are situations in which I would have acted differently if it had been in different circumstances, but I didn’t have time to think or act. If violent decisions were made, this could harm us. We were competing for the League and the Champions League. , and then what happened against Bayern Munich. ” .
He spoke of the disastrous defeat: “The defeat of Bayern Munich caused a great destruction of you and inserted you in the history of Barcelona. I have my share of responsibility for the defeat, and one day I will write about this game. After my dismissal I knew that my decision to leave was made before the 2-8 loss. “
Do you want to train again? The answer came in the negative: “I don’t really want to train now, I’m comfortable in my house overlooking the sea, with my famous cows, I’ve already gone through a period of mourning.”
He concluded: “I will never complain, I have been living football for 40 years, I was a worker in an office until I signed my first professional contract. I will always be grateful to football for everything it gave me.”
Read also:
Learn about Salah’s evaluation against West Ham
West Ham coach criticizes Salah