"There is a physical change, but talent will always have a place"

A wonderful time. From 1992 to 2004. Deportivo, a historic but always modest club founded in 1906 and with a reputation as an elevator team, became Super Dépor. At that moment he began to compete, as equals, against the greatest of Spanish and European football. He lost a league by missing a penalty in the last minute of the last game (93-94), but got up to win the Cup the following year. Five years later the pending League was claimed, in 2000, he performed in 2002 the feat of the Centenariazo at the Bernabéu and played the semifinals of the Champions League against Porto in 2003. About to turn 21 years of that May 19, 2000 in the that the blue and white, trained by Irureta, won the league title,the club from A Coruña survives in Second B and will play next season in what will be the third category of Spanish football.

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Fran González (Carreira, A Coruña, 51 years old) and Juan Carlos Valerón (Arguineguín, Gran Canaria, 45) were part of that unforgettable team and now they have returned to the club of their lives as technicians to try to be direct participants in a resurrection that is complicated adventure.

The first one only knew the blue and white colors as a footballer, 18 years old, and now works as director of the quarry;

the second, 13 years at Riazor, begins to understand the coaching career as head of Fabril, the subsidiary team.

Vicente del Bosque

.

We wanted to come to your house to know from the point of view of two sports legends how it has been possible to reach the situation in which the club is now.

But first I would like to know what opinion you have about something as current as the league title.

It had been many years since it had been so tight.

Fran

.

It was time.

It seemed that it was always Barcelona and Real Madrid and this situation now is very good for Spanish football.

Valerón

.

In our League every day there is more equality.

Fran: "Wrong decisions were made and Dépor is now as is"

D. B

.

Let's go to Deportivo.

How has such an important club reached this decline?

F

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It is difficult that a city like A Coruña can keep a club in the elite for a long time.

There has been an economic issue that has weighed heavily and from there everything else came.

Decisions were made that were not the right ones.

Nobody could imagine, it seemed impossible to me, that the team could be relegated to Second B, but it has happened and now we only need to row in one direction so that we can enjoy a Deportivo in First again.

V

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From the outside, many things escape you.

The future of the club was greatly conditioned on an economic level.

You have to think about the present.

Valerón: "In a tough economic situation you have to bet on people from the house"

D. B

.

Now that you are inside.

You see, do you have solutions?

The team has been on the verge of losing two categories and now struggles to maintain the one it has, even if next season is called something else.

F

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You have to go easy.

Establish a good foundation and that the children of the future are the ones who place Dépor where it deserves.

V

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When the clubs are in tough economic situations, it is normal to bet on the people at home.

You have to do a project based on the quarry.

D. B

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The quarry was my best stage.

Of course, it is essential to have a plan.

F

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It is about starting an idea for all the teams in the quarry, but it cannot be a closed idea.

It depends on the children who are.

No two generations are the same.

We want to mark a way forward, a methodology.

V

.

We are very excited.

With Fran at the head of the quarry, what the club wants is to establish an idea of ​​the game.

I am clear that football belongs to footballers.

The most important thing is to attract talent.

And keep in mind that, in addition to being good players, they are good professionals.

D. B

.

That you are here now means that the club has thought that the plan is designed by you.

F

.

Right now we have great competition with other clubs.

You can be working for three or four years with the children and other First Clubs come and take them away.

That makes the job very difficult.

D. B

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You, Fran, have a son at Barcelona who left at the age of 12… Are you happy with his evolution?

F

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It was a tough decision to go there.

He forced the whole family to move to Barcelona.

Next year he will be a first team player.

We are very excited.

And he more.

D. B

.

The fans have never turned their backs on the team.

F

.

This season we have had 20,000 members.

The most important thing now is not to make comparisons with the past.

Too much pressure is put on the team and that does a lot of damage.

You have to go easy.

D. B

.

But it is also important for everyone to know and remember that there was a Super Dépor that had two glorious stages, one with Arsenio, the other with Irureta.

F

.

I usually only talk about one stage.

And not because I was here 18 years in a row.

I understand that people divide it into two, but in the transition stage, between one and the other, Deportivo was third, fourth, fifth ... Except for a year or two, which were hard and difficult because there were too many signings that came from all sides and the identity was lost a bit, the other years if we didn't win something, we were always there.

D. B

.

That is precisely what you are valued for and why you were Super Dépor.

Not only because you won a League and two Cups, but because you were a very difficult opponent to win.

F

. The first generation that lost the League from penalties had a direct influence on the second that won the League. There were players who could already be at the end of their career, but it was the germ of the next one. In '92, we experienced how the team was called Super Dépor after a comeback against Real Madrid in Riazor in which they went from 0-2 to 3-2. That was the game of reference, when we hit the jump and began to compete with the greats. Those same players, more or less, we lost in the League in 94 and then we took revenge with the Deluge Cup at the Bernabéu against Valencia. From there, the club began to regenerate the team. The market was opened to people from all sides and that period that I call difficult arrived. Finally, national players were signed again, we were back at the top and the League arrived.

V

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And the year after winning the League is when I arrived, coming from relegation to Second with Atlético.

I arrive with Capdevilla and Molina ...

F

.

That's when a great squad is built.

With 16 or 17 internationals.

You looked at the bench and said: what a great team we have!

Changes were made and the team responded the same.

We played the Champions League at a high level and we reached the semifinals.

D. B

.

Those are the most difficult templates for a coach to manage, when you have so many good ones you don't know who to choose, if you have it more hierarchical it is easier.

F

.

Irureta managed it well ... (smiles)

D. B

.

It is impossible to talk to you and not to talk about Arsenio or Irureta, who for me have been two gentlemen in every way.

One begins the work and the other ends it with the Centenariazo at the Bernabéu in which the two of you were already in that match at the Bernabéu against Real Madrid ...

F

.

And I don't know who was training Real Madrid that night ...?

[General laughter, since it was Del Bosque].

D. B

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You, Fran, left the club in 2005 and you, Valerón, stayed until 2013 and lived through a stage with worse results in which problems at the club arrived.

V

.

Yes, we go down in 2011 and go up again the following year.

In that last stage is when we begin to have financial problems and fight not to descend.

They were complicated years ... and until now.

Del Bosque: "The changing rooms have not changed, although we long for it"

D. B

.

Sometimes we talk about football and long for the past.

We thought it was better, that those costumes were more authentic, less professionalized, and we became a bit romantic, but my opinion is that the costumes do not change much over time.

F

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I am one of the romantics.

I do think there have been a lot of changes.

Before it was very difficult to change teams, now there is no problem.

Everything has been globalized.

V

.

I also.

I played in Las Palmas, in two stages, at Atlético and Deportivo, but after so many years here a bond was created that stayed with me.

D. B

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Well, Fran, you were out of your club all your life too.

Deportivo sold you to Real Madrid and then had to pay to get you back.

F

.

But I never left.

There was something, but I did not leave.

I didn't get to go out… Yes, yes.

That's how it went.

D. B

.

In football trends as soon as technique predominates, as physics.

With players of great physique like Mbappé or Haaland, it may happen that we are in front of a present with a more physical football than the one you played and I participated as a coach.

F

.

Soccer has evolved a lot and now the players, in addition to being technical and skilled, have impressive physiques behind them.

Those two examples are the best.

They score incredible goals for their technique, but it matters at the speed they do.

Soccer is making a change, but the talented player will always have a place.

V

.

And, in addition to technique, mastery of space.

Solve game situations with quality.

The technique is what allows the tactical organizations to work and you can break the organizations of the other teams at the same time.

It is important to have players who know how to break rival structures.

D. B

.

For example, Fran has been working with Manchester City for two years, what has caught your attention the most?

F

.

I was with the under-18s and I coincided with Sancho and Foden, who were the most representative players at that time.

In physical tests, in agility, skill, speed and endurance they were among the top three.

To get to the elite you have to have those four values.

My job was to help train these players.

I enjoyed very much.

And now when I see them play, I feel like a participant in their evolution.

In addition, of course, he was in contact with Guardiola.

My vocation is more with the children.

That's why now, at Deportivo, I'm also enjoying it a lot.

D. B

.

In the same way that Fran has been thrown more by management, it seems that Valerón has more of a vocation as a coach.

V

.

It wasn't until I stopped playing that I started looking for my space and really knowing what I would like to do.

I wanted to be a coach, but you had to see if I was good at it… I stayed in the grassroots football in Las Palmas, then I was with the subsidiary.

When I played my greatest satisfaction was to see that people enjoyed what they did on the field.

D. B

.

Do you have the dream of turning this Deportivo around and seeing him play in the First Division again with a full Riazor, one as director of the quarry and the other as coach?

F

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I have the dream of seeing a Deportivo in Primera with 14 or 15 players from the quarry.

But it's going to cost us a lot, a lot.

It will not be easy.

Here is an economic issue that weighs a lot ... It has been improved with the management of the previous president [he refers to Tino Fernández] and now with ABANCA, but the sports issue is going to rise as soon as possible.

D. B

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Now Pedri has emerged from the Canarian school.

Although I no longer know if schools really exist as they were understood before: the Canarian, the northern, the Andalusian, the Basque ...

V

.

I do continue to see differences.

After me and before Pedri we have to talk about Silva, the most important player who has surpassed all the others.

Pedri's case is exciting for his youth and for what he is already doing at Barcelona.

He can contribute many things in the future in our football.

"The Super League can never be closed"

Although deactivated in just 48 hours, the convulsion of the European Super League could not be left aside in a conversation between three football fans with enough knowledge of the cause not to tiptoe through the situation.

Fran and Valerón find it difficult to enter the matter.

Possibly because they see it as a competition that is drawn on a different planet than the one where their Deportivo currently lives.

Faced with Del Bosque's approach, Fran takes the first step. “It is clear that changes are coming in the world of football. You have to listen to everyone and the ideal would be for there to be a consensus among all of us that would make us all enjoy later. What I would not agree on is that it was a closed competition. Clubs that have spent years earning a place competing among the best cannot be left out. "

Valerón steps on the tracks of his companion. “The football industry cannot forget about the people. You cannot lose sight of it. Soccer, lately, may be less attractive on the field because the economic issue conditions everything. All parties have to sit down and the footballers also have to be in that sitting. With so many games the show can be deteriorated. I see everything from a distance. The economic situation that the clubs are going through has precipitated events ”.

Del Bosque emphasizes the matter.

“The Super League has been developing in recent years behind the back of football.

It is not something that appears now overnight.

All the movements that take place lately have an economic foundation that has a direct impact on the players.

There are more and more matches, more competitions, national teams, clubs.

At some point you have to think about the footballer and create more logical and less overloaded calendars ”.

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