Luis Fernando Suárez, Costa Rica coach: "I can go naked, but not without my red 'converse'"

"I have a cabal," says Luis Fernando Suárez (Medellín, Colombia, 1959).

“But for dolling up the concept of neurolinguistic programming, I will say that I have an

.

My

is

red

I started using them because I injured the neck of my foot and needed a splint.

Since we were winning, the players made me put them on.

I can go naked, but I have to go with the

red

The coach of Costa Rica, Spain's rival this Wednesday in the debut of both teams in the World Cup in Qatar (Al-Thumama stadium, 5:00 p.m.), has been experimenting with feelings and football for more than half a century.

He qualified Ecuador for the 2006 World Cup and Honduras for the 2014 World Cup, before he called it Costa Rica a year ago, with the chimerical objective of straightening out a lopsided classification.

He did it in the playoffs and arrives in Qatar happy.

"Living in a country without an army is absolute peace of mind," he says.

“It's like they say: pura vida!

A friend told me: 'It's that when we became independent we didn't have to fight;

The viceroy of Spain sent us a letter telling us that we were free.'

From the beginning, they did not fight for freedom.

They gave it to him!

But since they are so prudent,

As the Costa Rican is cautious, he defends himself well;

and in attack what he seeks is to avoid breaking down behind.

That is why the difficult thing is to develop a more fruitful process from midfield forward.

“I have had to go through an express process to get to know the Costa Rican,” he explains.

“Speaking with the coach of the Costa Rican golf teams, he told me something: 'The Costa Rican golfer differs from the American in that when he hits he does it to bring the ball closer;

the American hits the hole directly'.

This is the Costa Rican.

Caution, look, wait.

I have to take advantage of that inclination to face competition situations.

That is why in this work the doctrine is useless.

This is adaptation and taking advantage of qualities that people have.

Because people are totally different from each other.

"Listen and not indoctrinate," he concludes, "is the main lesson I learned from Francisco Maturana to carry out this job.

"If you want to form a team that is a mental state in which each one is in person with the objective, the condition to achieve that commitment is that each player proposes things."

Suárez maintains that his main job has been to try to help the team to do things that go against their character.

"As the Costa Rican is cautious, he defends himself well," he says.

“And in attack what he seeks is to avoid breaking down behind.

That is why the difficult thing is to develop a more fruitful process from midfield forwards”.

“Spain”, he observes, “will always look for high and big possessions and we must be as narrow and short as possible, look to be very aggressive in the mark, recover quickly and not allow them to pressure us after they lose the ball because that is what They do very well, almost at the level of Germany”.

"Our proposal must always be with the ball," he says.

“If we give too much of the ball to Spain we are going to have problems.

What I least want is for them to have the ball in our last quarter of the court.

For that we do not have to let ourselves be fixed because if that happens they will take advantage of the spaces.

We don't have to let ourselves be fixed!

Our reference in defense has to be the ball”.

How to avoid that the Spanish attacks lead the Costa Ricans to let themselves be dragged by Luis Enrique's players, instead of following the ball?

“I recently read a book”, says the technician, “

which talks about the cognitive.

He proposes that beyond the tactics you can generate training so that instead of the player thinking one thing, he thinks three.

He practiced 11 against 14. To make it difficult for the starters: so that having more people to defend would not allow themselves to be fixed.

Then I did an 11-on-11 tryout where everyone was uniformed the same, so in order to make a pass the player had to think more.

Some ended up recognizing their companions by the boots!

If you train the cognitive, the players learn to decide without being ordered”.

In Spain, trilogies are formed between the sides, the extremes, and the interiors such as Pedri or Busquets, who act as axes.

Those triangles change everything and it is a performance that must be cut

Asked about Pedri and Busquets, the great metronomes of Spain, Suárez prefers to see them in a context.

“There is an exercise that I never do for mental health: looking too much at individuals,” he says.

“I pay attention to the collective movements.

In Spain, trilogies are formed between the wings, the extremes that go inwards and the interiors like Pedri or Busquets, who act as axes.

Those triangles change everything and it is a performance that must be cut.

I have given each of the players a memory about the movements of Spain, Japan and Germany.

So that they study them on their laptops.”

Suárez, who as an Atlético Nacional central defender lifted the 1989 Copa Libertadores, mentions technology with suspicion.

"You have to humanize this," he warns.

“There is a hackneyed phrase:

.

All coaches talk about decision-making and we don't even know what that is.

Who should make the decisions?

The players or the coaches that we require the players to become robotic?

When you talk about lanes, pressure flush, and we all play the same, this happens.

It seems to me that playing is changing situations.

But who?

The players with their creativity”.

“My psychologist proposed me a training in which no one can speak.

Everybody shut up!” he says.

“This changes everything because football is communication.

The day the talker is penalized, the players will be in a lot of trouble.

They will have to work more peripheral vision.

You want to play football?

It is not enough just to dominate the ball.

Just speaking well makes you a better player."

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