"I don't know how to do anything else": Raul Gonzalez, the discreet coach of PSG handball

From his six Champions Leagues won as a coach (4) or player (2), his Olympic gold medal gleaned in 1992 or his world title in 1993, Talant Dujshebaev is considered the greatest master of the handball planet.

So when the current coach of the Poles in Kielce tells us that Raul Gonzalez is "one of the best coaches in the world", we tend to take his word for it.

“We shared the same room for eight years when we played for Spain as partners,” he continues.

He was my assistant.

Between us, we have won three Champions Leagues (2006, 2008 and 2009) and four Spanish Liga (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) with Ciudad Real.

It was something!

He is my friend, like my brother.

I don't know if I had the chance to teach him a lot of things in his trade, but he taught me so much.

"

Talant Dujshebaev: "The most serious in the profession that I know"

Listening to these praises, the discreet Gonzalez blushed.

“Raul never shows it, continues his mentor.

He is not very demonstrative like me, but he lives every game to the fullest.

Me, when I lose, I am sad but I live it well with because there is no choice.

Raul takes a long time to recover.

This is proof of great professionalism.

He's the most serious guy in the business that I know.

"

Seriously, that sums up Raul Gonzalez Gutierrez, 51-year-old Spaniard at the head of PSG for three years.

Third coach of the Qatari era after Philippe Gardent (2012-2015) and Zvonimir Serdarusic (2015-2018), the bronze medalist of the Atlanta Olympics with Spain is the first to extend his contract.

"Paris will not find better than him elsewhere", assured this winter Jérôme Fernandez, who met him in Spain.

He signed, exactly a month ago, for two additional years, until 2023. “This confidence is a huge source of pride and my greatest reward,” confides the technician.

I didn't have an easy start when I arrived.

I did not speak French and when the players spoke to me, I did not understand anything.

I landed in the unknown, without knowing the city, the workings of the club.

I took the team that was given to me at the time.

The first three to four months were complicated.

I did all I could to get involved and fit in.

Now I am very happy.

I feel like what you are seeing is really my team now.

"

"I don't go out and I have a very simple life"

For fluency in French, everything is under control.

Although he admits to still speaking Spanish at home with his wife and two daughters, Gonzalez is fluent in Molière's language.

It is with her that he insists on continuing the interview.

“You know,” said the former Macedonia coach, “I don't have a lot of passions.

I like a lot of things, but nothing like handball.

When I finish training or a match, I go home like everyone else and I find my family, quietly.

I don't go out and I have a very simple life after all.

"

First focused on basketball and football at home in Valladolid, where he spent his entire playing career (1987-2005) as a center-half, Raul Gonzalez was quickly picked up by the sticky little ball: “I have I was a player as best I could, then I became a coach and I never asked myself why, he laughs.

I'm a coach because maybe I just don't know how to do anything else in my life.

"

Talant Dujshebaev takes up the thread: “Raul is a faithful man in friendship as in his profession.

He has played his whole life at Valladolid and when I asked him to become my assistant at Ciudad Real the first time I know it was heartbreaking for him.

At Vardar Skopje he went through very difficult times.

I reassured him by telling him that the most important thing is not the hand, but health.

I don't know if he heard me back then, but I know today that he is a very happy man ”.

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He is in Paris until 2023

This Thursday (8:45 p.m.) in Celje, Raul Gonzalez will be in front of the Parisian bench - he rarely sits there - for the 111th time.

His record is almost irreproachable: 94 victories, 13 defeats and 3 draws with the added bonus, two titles of champions of France in a period weighed down by the pandemic.

“I don't have much merit,” he confides modestly.

It's easy to be the PSG coach when you have so many great players.

Earning their respect as long as you're up to the task isn't difficult either.

All of them are stars on the pitch, but they never behave that way off the beaten path.

They are mostly good and perfectly normal men.

It is a pleasure to work with them.

"

The Champions League, his big challenge

The only snag in the Parisian course of the Ibère: the Champions League is still missing from the club's record that no one will deprive of a seventh consecutive French championship title.

For the moment, Raul Gonzalez has not done better than his two predecessors.

“Of course, that's our goal,” he promises.

At PSG, we want the best and the best all the time, it's this Champions League.

The only thing I ask is to win everything, all the time and this trophy is obviously part of it.

In Celje, we will play the most important match of our season, the one that will condition the rest of our Champions League.

We have to earn it even if we come out of a week of isolation because of Covid cases.

It does not make my job as a coach any easier and for a year I have savored my first victory when I am told that all the players have tested negative.

But this fight is the same for everyone.

It's a part of our new life and we all do with it, whether we are a handball player or not.

"

In the event of qualification, Paris will find in the quarter-finals the Hungarians of Szeged or the Germans of Kiel, title holders.

Not easy.