"The big problem with Messi is that he competes with himself"

A new League has been launched with the special connotations required by the pandemic that, however, do not interfere with some historical certainties, such as that Andoni Zubizarreta (Vitoria, Álava, 58 years old) is the player with the most games in the championship in the 91 years of existence of the competition.

Their 622 encounters will continue for quite some time.

It seems difficult for the active players who approach him to reach that figure, simply because of a question of age: Joaquín (552 crashes, 39 years old), Sergio Ramos (493 games, with 34), Messi (485, with 33) and Raúl García (485, with 34).

Vicente del Bosque (Salamanca, 69 years old) resumes his talks in EL PAÍS with his date with the mythical Basque goalkeeper of Athletic, Barça, Valencia and La Roja.

The same person who knows the ins and outs of the offices after passing through the sports management of Athletic, Barça and Marseille.

Past, present and future of Spanish football in a purely

conversation

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From the Forest

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Andoni, you have played almost 1,000 games in your career, 959 to be exact, 622 of them official in the League.

Nobody can get to that ...

Zubizarreta.

He did not know the exact number.

I was lucky enough to play at that time when goalkeepers were starters or were substitutes.

There were no rotations.

And I was lucky that I had practically no injuries, even a mishap already playing for Valencia, before the 98 World Cup. So there was another concept of what injuries were.

I have played with a bad shoulder, with a bad knee, with a stress crack, with discomfort all over the body, and I think that now in those conditions I would not have played.

But then to do without the starting goalkeeper was to do without almost everything.

DB

That would be because you already had to play with your feet more and you had more wear….

With the national team you also reached 126 games and you were the first to reach 100.

Z.

Yes, I reached the centenary in Yerevan (Armenia).

One always dreams of reaching those figures and enjoying it in a big stadium, like Casillas, who fulfilled them at Wembley.

I played in a small stadium with the flavor of another football.

I beat Camacho in caps and he played the joke that they were going to give me a lifetime salary for the record.

People believed it and kept asking me.

DB

They ask me about the marquis and I always answer that the next salary for being a marquis I share with him… Let's go to the present time, Andoni.

The season that begins is strange for everything that has happened and still happens.

There has been no preseason, there have been almost no signings, few friendlies, few training sessions, but despite everything I am confident that in Spanish football everything will turn out well, as when he returned last season.

Z.

Everything has come together, yes, and this will allow us to verify that some issues that seemed theological to us in football, such as the five or six weeks of preseason, the preparation, the adaptation of the signings, the

that needs new faces because people get tired of what there is ... This year we found that all that, which was normal, has not existed.

DB

And above all in Spain it has been mixed with the possible departure of Messi, which would have been very bad news for our football.

Z.

There are players who represent much more than being a great player, and Leo is one of those.

They represent the game, but also that small player who has a special physical constitution, but who builds, is capable of scoring goals ...

DB

A boy from the neighborhood ...

Z.

That, a neighborhood boy, who looks like a normal boy turned into the best player in the world.

The loss of that player should have been measured from the loss of the footballer himself and the loss for the competition, for the kids who pay attention and want to be like the best.

You should also have measured what it would have meant for a club as particular as Barcelona.

DB

When I referred to a neighborhood player, I meant that, at times, he may not have been able to give the image absolutely of a neighborhood player.

That would have been asking the maximum.

Being a very good teammate, having excellent behavior with the club, would be the ideal footballer for me then.

I'd put him on an altar.

Z.

Leo's big problem is that he is a competitor with himself ...

DB

Sometimes, when we don't say things, we say the word competitor ...

Z.

Nooo, I understand what happens to him.

We have all had that responsibility.

When you are in the dressing room tunnel to go out to play, you know who the good guys are on your team, who you win with, especially in finals.

In the national team we had Butragueño, Míchel, who in important games had to unbalance.

That responsibility carried 15 years ... you have to have a moment of doubt.

There is a day when you look in the mirror and say: "Uff, this doesn't have to be so easy."

That in Leo is difficult to carry with himself.

DB

It's difficult, yes, it's difficult even for the coach to manage that.

If those great players do not align themselves with the coach a bit, the problem begins to be very humble for the coaches.

Z.

That depends on the generosity of the player with his team, with his coach.

Tata Martino, when he was at Barça, used to say to Leo: “I know that if you call the president, he throws me out, but hell, you don't need to show me every day.

I already know it".

DB

Do not hide it or display it.

Z.

When you see Michael Jordan's documentary

you hear him talk about how they vetoed Isaiah Thomas, who was the best point guard that was then in the NBA, among him, Larry Bird and company, but they decided that he was not going to the

of the '92 Games, you see those competitive characters in everything.

They are not easy items.

In the end I think we are afraid, I respect the competition.

You will have felt it, for example, in the World Cup final.

Carlos Parreira, who was world champion with Brazil in the United States 94, told us when he was at Valencia that on the day of the final he sent his whole family out of Brazil.

They had moved out.

He thought that if they won, fine, but if they lost against Italy he didn't know what could happen.

In that limit in which you live, having a normal head is very complicated.

They are people who have complex heads, very difficult to understand, although later in the you to you they are easier, but they are not easy to find in the you to you.

They have many barriers, many complications.

DB

I've been very lucky, very lucky with those players.

I only had one episode with Anelka, who was not a bad boy, but it was the only time I had a problem.

Z.

That is one of the peculiarities that you have had in the selection.

I remember that Ibrahimovic said that the players our Xavi, Iniesta, Valdés, Puyol or Piqué, who you had in the national team, did not have the soul of stars, that they had to have more ego, that to be a great, great, you had to enhance the ego.

DB

I don't think it's necessary either ...

Z.

I'm sure those players had that ego, but they put it at the service of their teams.

DB

And that we were lucky that past generations did not.

Z.

Good luck and success.

And to have a goalkeeper who saved penalties [Casillas].

DB

All this that we have talked about was relevant to Messi, but now I would like us to talk about your career.

Three absolutely different clubs: Athletic, Barcelona and Valencia.

Z.

Athletic is my club.

The day of the presentation with Barça I said it although I don't know if it felt good, but it was and is the truth.

It's my club.

When I came back to Olympique de Marseille as sports director and we eliminated them, it was a strange feeling.

Although in reality, I am not from Athletic, I am from José Ángel Iribar.

I wanted to be a goalkeeper and I wanted to be like Iribar, and he was at Athletic.

I find him as a goalkeeping coach.

We trained every afternoon.

I was in the military.

We ate, we talked like we are doing now.

I told him I wanted to play in black.

And he told me: “No.

You have to play your color.

I used to play in black ”.

DB

You have always played with gloves… José Ángel came to play without them.

Z.

Yes, always with gloves.

He played with the wool ones at the end.

I used to buy the gloves in Germany when we traveled.

DB

Before your transfer to Barcelona, ​​Athletic had already sold Garay and Alexanco to that club… You weren't the first.

Z.

Yes, but my casuistry was that I had just finished my contract and that I could leave for free, without a transfer.

However, I told Barça to agree with Ahtletic.

I remember Joan Gaspart telling me that the money that I wanted them to give to the club, they gave it to me and I said no.

I forced them to pay him.

DB You

demonstrate the sense of belonging and loyalty to a club.

Z.

That was what seemed normal to me.

We signed in Zaragoza and the trip back to Bilbao made it sad.

When I got home I was not happy.

He was going to make a lot more money, an eight-year contract.

I had the idea, I wanted to be the Iribar of the 80s and 90s. Therefore, it is true that Barcelona gave me so much to learn, that feeling of the Barça fan with the club that in a way resembled that of the Athletic fan with his .

After living it, I don't regret anything.

I would do it again.

But the first moment was tough.

It was changing cities, we had just had our oldest son, he was 20 days old.

A very abrupt change.

But then in Barcelona everything was wonderful.

DB

Barcelona, ​​as a big club, had a different philosophy than Athletic, which only lived off its quarry.

Z.

I arrived just after the final against Steaua in Seville, who lost and despite this Urruti, may he rest in peace, saved two penalties.

It was a convulsive moment.

Venables had asked for my signing and I played.

Then Johan Cruyff came and it is the story that everyone knows.

DB

And then the four years in Valencia in which you played all the league games.

Of these three stages, if you had to choose one, which would it be?

Z.

I'll take the first game I played with Athletic at home, which was also at Atotxa because San Mamés was under construction.

The first was in the Calderón.

Which one do I prefer?

You keep everything.

It is like children.

DB

You are right.

When they ask me that I always say that I am 36 years old.

Z.

By choosing, you resign.

People forget the four years of Valencia, but they were wonderful.

I had just lost the Champions League final 4-0 and it's a club that trusts you.

My first six months were a disaster if I analyze the level that I considered I had as a goalkeeper, but they knew how to put up with me and understand me.

DB

Major losses almost always focus on veterans.

It happened to me.

The youngest are better off.

Z.

Yes, Johan also used it a bit to disperse.

Laudrup went to Madrid ...

DB

Of the three club philosophies you learned, which one has influenced you the most for your move to sports director?

Or the coaches you had, who did you think was the most innovative, who influenced you the most?

Z.

I think that of Athletic.

At Barça I learned an idea of ​​the game, training sessions and everything that surrounds that club, but at Athletic I learned many things.

From coaches I choose two: Clemente and Cruyff.

Javi, when he took the team, was 32 years old, had just stopped playing and instilled in a team the vocation to win.

In his first press conference he says that Athletic aspires to be champion.

I came from the subsidiary and it seemed impossible to me.

And yet he succeeded.

DB

It is that Javier must be given the value he deserves.

Win two consecutive Leagues and a Cup.

Z.

And, furthermore, if we review the first league, we won it with an average of two match goals.

It was said that we were defensive, but it was the opposite.

There were a lot of strategy goals, but it was a team that played football well.

Javi brought something different to football, even in the relationship with the media.

He wanted to send his message to his players and fans.

It is also true that when you use that type of aggressive route sometimes you are wrong and how much you are wrong.

DB

The image I have of Cruyff is that of a very practical man, not very theoretical in theory, but in the end the players who are under his command know who they have as coach.

Z.

Those of us who have been players know that when a coach with aura and fame speaks to you, a week later we know if he has consistency or not.

Johan had it, but he would have been unable to write or define his football.

Certainly not.

He was sorry.

Johan had a totally different vision of football.

Before we talked about Messi, because Cruyff had a very special personality.

Johan never lost.

In the final of the Champios that we beat Sampdoria there was Lombardo and he puts Juan Carlos on the left side.

In his classic 1-3-4-3 system, he plays another player.

The most important day, he does not play with his idea.

You don't cheat yourself.

He knows that the opponent has that trick and goes to 1-4-3-3 without any problem.

He, as is Cruyff, he defines football.

And from that position that seems very great allows him to get to do what he wanted.

One day I remember telling Laudrup that he could do certain things that he did when he was a player and Michael told him: "You were Cruyff and I am me."

DB

I have the feeling that he was a man who, as a good leader, had a positive influence.

Z. He

had that unique vision.

One day we lost 6-2 in Zaragoza and the League went away, which we later won in Tenerife.

We thought he was going to give us a championship fight.

However, he was one by one telling them things.

As they had scored six, they couldn't score more goals for me in the remainder of the season.

He had that ability to adapt to circumstances.

DB

I also had a coach who, when we lost, adapted to the circumstances: Boskov.

And when we won he came in pissed off.

It was the counterweight to victory and defeat.

Always the opposite.

When he wanted to say something bad to you, he called you by your last name.

And when it was somewhat affectionate, by name.

Z.

Johan was… not tough, gaunt, let's say.

One day we lost 0-2 at halftime and we went into the locker room and he didn't say anything.

He gets his coffee.

And the ten minutes pass and he says nothing.

The bell rang to go out on the field and he simply said, "Go out and fix what you screwed up in the first half."

DB

Those silences are killers.

Let's see what it says, let's see what it says ... and be quiet.

That is tremendous.

Speaking of current goalkeepers, there is one that reminds me a lot of you: Courtois.

Very similar, although the comparisons are always obnoxious.

For physical, exits, occupying spaces, left-handed ...

Z.

Yes, he has a style to me, long arms.

I know him well, he was on our list before signing Ter Stegen and in the end we signed the German.

A decision that was left to me because it goes without saying that I understand goalkeepers.

And I chose him because the Barça goalkeeper is more demanded from the point of view of the game with his feet, mobility, the exit of the ball.

But, even though I didn't choose him, I said that Courtois was going to be one of the five best goalkeepers in the world shortly, and he already is.

It is another profile, in another way of playing.

Oblak is a huge goalkeeper too, but it would not serve to play, for example, at Barça, which is the most immaculate team from that point of view.

Courtois does not complicate life so much.

If he sees a good start, he takes it short and, if not, he looks for his center forward.

He knows himself and knows his team and his audience, when there was one.

You know you don't have that need to go out and play.

At Barça, if you hit it long you have a whisper, and at the Bernabéu if you play inside they tell you to do something else.

It is something that has to do with the playing cultures of the teams and it is a very Spanish debate that, for example, in France there is not.

Not those extremisms.

DB

And we are already entering the evolution of the goalkeeper position, which is not only good who stops, but who plays a little.

I don't think it's bad, but there seems to be a fever that has entered with the start of the game as almost the foundation for success.

Without starting the game you are looked down on.

Z.

Start of the game every time from further back, back, back.

DB

Back, back, even if it is a regional team because everyone believes that it is the basis for playing well.

Z.

My father tells me that when he goes to see the UDA, which is the Aretxabaleta team: “You have done football a lot wrong with so much passing from behind”.

There they also try to play from the area and that is impossible.

That can only be done by those who can.

This is the case of Ter Stegen, we signed him.

They always tell me about his quality, about his game with his feet.

And I say that all that is very good, but the most important thing is whether or not to stop.

Once we stop we put the other things.

DB

Much damage, yes sir.

Now the centrals get into the small area to attract the opposite.

Z.

There is a fever about ball possession, it is the concept that if you send the ball long, you are raffling it and you have to start from behind.

In the Cup final against Athletic de Caparrós, this is the first time I have seen a goalkeeper, Pinto, take back, who had Puyol and Piqué.

That has to happen in a certain match or a certain situation, but taking it to all matches seems out of place.

Also, now you can kick out and you don't even need the ball to go out.

It redounds more to the same question.

DB

It seems that if you don't you are out of date.

The most innovative think it is a great innovation and the most purists think it is a deformation.

Z.

Excesses and defects are not good.

Neither will you always clear the ball nor will you always play it, but yes when you have the opportunity to play it, create superiority when the team unfolds, but yes, the risk on the defensive line, zero;

those in the middle a little and those at the top to risk what they want.

When you score a goal after 26 touches it comes out in all places, but if we do the statistics backwards, how many goals have been received for insisting on that formula would surely unbalance the question.

It is all a question of risk.

Goalkeepers have to risk just enough.

One day I told Ter Stegen.

Think I'm up and when you cut back, I could have a heart attack.

That we are already beginning to have an age.

DB

You have to have two hearts: one when he plays and one for when he doesn't.

Why have you never wanted to be a coach?

Z.

Never.

It has always seemed the most difficult to me.

DB

Yes?

But if we are anybody, coach ...

Z.

No, perhaps as a colleague said, because he was always alone with a book reading.

Goalkeepers always have that lonely mentality.

I liked the organization, the structure, what I then did.

DB

You were also giving talks to groups of managers for a few years.

What was your specialty?

Z.

I was talking about specialists in organizations and companies.

That is, of the goalkeepers in a team.

He spoke of the doorman's loneliness.

Although the team works well there are always decisions that one makes.

DB

In that solitude you have to know how to listen.

Z.

Yes. Loneliness does not mean isolation.

I gave as an example that a specialist not only has to know how to do one thing.

In the case of goalkeepers, in addition to stopping, playing with their feet.

men

within the organization.

The funny thing about these talks is that you learn from what they tell you.

People think that our world is different from all the others.

They see us far away, but our world is the same as any other.

In the end we are people and our relationships with the coach and the president are similar to those of any company.

They tell you their experiences and we value what we have done, which is more than hitting a ball.

DB

A changing room works well if you establish relationships, without that it is very difficult to win.

If you convince the best that they can score three goals every game, but if we don't win we're dead.

It's what I say, that the players think that they are the ones who are in charge and in the end what you want is done.

Sport in everything that has to do with relationships is fantastic.

I always say that we are from a club, but in reality, we are from football.

Z.

I agree.

There are hierarchies in companies, not in the field.

Here everyone analyzes everything from their eyes: some as a coach, another as a critic, another as an amateur, but on the field no one can hide.

And who is hiding is known.

We have all known great players who, on certain occasions, had a harder time performing.

In the field there is neither tie nor suit behind which you can hide.

That is a huge learning curve.

Three games as rivals

Vicente and Andoni have been 11 years apart.

However, their football careers coincided three times on a pitch.

The last two seasons of Del Bosque's career are the same in which Athletic with Zubi already undisputed starters [1982-83 and 83-84] is League champion.

What's more, the last league match played by the former national team is precisely against the Bilbao club at the Bernabéu: 11-27-83.

Matchday 13 and ends with a tie (0-0).

Del Bosque enters the 76th minute for Isidro.

“And I remember that I played well those last minutes.

I certainly didn't think they were going to be the last in the league.

Di Stéfano didn't put me on anymore ”.

In the previous two courses they had faced each other directly on two other occasions.

In 81-82, Real Madrid's victory at San Mamés (1-2) and in 82-83, a new white victory at the Bernabéu (2-0).

Del Bosque entered through García Hernández.

Zubi returns as a columnist to EL PAÍS

Andoni Zubizarreta will once again collaborate with the newspaper EL PAÍS, as he did during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, which the Spanish team won precisely with Vicente Del Bosque as coach.

It was during that tournament that Barcelona called him to assume the position of sports director, who has also served at Athletic and recently at Olympique de Marseille.

After his experience in the offices in France, Andoni Zubizarreta will analyze in a weekly column the news of Spanish and European football, and the LaLiga and Champions matches, without losing sight of the Spanish team.

"Football gives room for reflection and teaches you so many things ...", says the exporter.

Zubizarreta joins the EL PAÍS team of sports firms along with Jorge Valdano, Santiago Segurola and Toni Nadal, among others.