Rafa Márquez: "Playing five World Cups is nothing more than a number"

2022-11-26T11:21:21.736Z

The Mexican, coach of Barça Atlètic, reflects on the training and analyzes the World Cup in Qatar and the evolution of his former teammate and captain of Argentina, Leo Messi

Rafa Márquez (Zamora de Hidalgo, Mexico; 43 years old) missed the smell of the grass.

“I had a short period in the offices [he was sports director of Atlas de Guadalajara], but I realized that my thing was to be close to the field.

Touch the grass”, says the former defender from the stands of the Johan Cruyff stadium.

The only Mexican to lift the Orejona —2006 and 2009, both with Barcelona—, this season he began his journey as a coach at Barça Atlètic, as they already did, also at the hands of Joan Laporta, Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique.

And at the Ciudad Deportiva, Barça's homegrown players appreciate it.

"The training sessions are fun," they say.

“I try to make them enjoy.

Tug of war, tug of war

But, when you have to work you have to be serious.

All this is like life, you have to have balances.

Nothing more," he concludes.

Is clear,

He speaks slowly and never loses sight of the ball.

Like when I played.

Ask.

Who named him the

Kaiser

Response.

Laporta, the day of my presentation in 2003 "Here is the

Kaiser

of Michoacán," he said.

It put a lot of pressure on me [laughs].

And from then on, everyone started calling me the

Kaiser.

In the end, luckily, things turned out well.

When you played it seemed that you had the entire field in your head, how do you see it from the bench?

Wanting to get back in and fix the matter.

Not seriously.

I enjoy a lot, I'm passionate about it.

I am interested in transmitting all the experience I have acquired throughout my career.

That's why I also have a small academy.

I would like to change the training system in Mexico.

Or, at least, give it another approach.

In what sense?

In Mexico you begin to play directly in

eleventh

football .

It is a very big field for boys.

There is less interaction with the ball, less concepts and less understanding of the game.

I prefer that children start in futsal.

The technical part is developed more and it is more fun for them.

They make more mistakes, so they learn better.

Does the methodology break creativity?

There is a factor that is important.

In Mexico, for example, for security reasons, it is more difficult for children to play in the street.

The ideal, for me, is that players up to a certain age can develop their qualities with the ball without having to think about tactics.

That's how I learned on the street: to improvise.

We played what we called fast soccer.

We had walls and we were five against five.

It never stopped.

Are you more interested in training than training?

No, I also like to train.

I like being in charge of a group of people who I have to convince to give their all every day.

Obviously, in terms of managing a group, a subsidiary is not the same as a first team.

At that level it is more difficult to convince the player.

They are more done, financially they are saved.

But when I get to a first team I'll see how I'm going to convince them.

It does not have bad precedents.

Guardiola and Luis Enrique were coaches of the subsidiary.

I hope Xavi stays for a long time.

But when you start as a coach it's like when you start as a player: you dream bigger.

Reach a great team, a great selection.

What surely you had never dreamed of is having the record of world cups played [five, like Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lothar Matthaus and his compatriot Antonio Carbajal]?

For me it is one more figure.

I didn't achieve anything important in any of the five World Cups I played.

He can only remember the goals.

It was the same result, no more, no less.

What would have been a good result for Mexico?

Going to the famous fifth game would have already been something different [Mexico only reached the quarterfinals twice, both when it served as host, in 1970 and in 1986;

and in the last eight World Cups it fell in the round of 16].

Rafa Márquez, before the interview with EL PAÍS, in the stands of the Johan Cruyff Stadium. Gianluca Battista

Were you the team captain in the five World Cups?

Yes, in all five.

Aguirre made me captain in 2002. There were people of higher rank than me at that time.

There was Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Conejo Pérez, Luis Hernández… But Vasco decided that.

Why do you think Aguirre made that decision?

It is true that I behaved differently inside the field than outside.

On the field he directed, ordered, encouraged and did whatever was necessary.

I didn't care about my age.

But outside he was shy, reserved.

Over time, I did exercise leadership inside and outside.

Tell me about your coaches.

When you go from player to coach you think about the good and bad things of all the coaches you've had in your career.

As for the tactical issue, Lavolpe could change structure very quickly.

He went from playing with a line of five to a 4-4-2.

Very good at finding the formula to hurt the opponent.

I learned a lot from him in that regard.

In management, however, he was not the best.

He was an authoritarian leader who imposed his things.

You had to do it yes or yes what he said or you were out of the team.

Guardiola.

A perfectionist.

He was tireless.

I was thinking about the exercises, the tasks.

All the time I wanted to improve in ball release, in progression, also in how to hurt the opponent.

He told you: "This is going to happen."

And it happened.

In group management, is Aguirre the best?

Yes, he is an expert.

That is why he has been in teams where a group is needed to get out of those problems.

We have always seen him saving teams to avoid relegation.

Lots of character, lots of temperament.

It helps you fight.

Get the best out of each of your players.

Will Mexico finish making the leap to the World Cups when it consolidates a base of soccer players in the best teams in Europe?

A. There

are many circumstances.

To begin with, perhaps, our football is not well organized to get the most out of it and to be able to better develop our players so that they can make the leap to Europe.

And, later, it is true that in the World Cups we have had great teams.

Of the five World Cups that I played, in two we played Argentina;

in the last one, Brazil;

in another, Holland with the famous penalty... The one we came closest to was in 2006, when Argentina beat us in extra time.

And in that World Cup I felt quite good.

He came from winning the Champions League with Barça.

For the fan in Mexico, is Rafa Márquez more than Hugo Sánchez or the other way around?

As always in these cases, different periods are compared.

I am from Hugo Sánchez.

If he had not been there, we would not have had that example.

When I started playing, Hugo was the example, we were all from Madrid.

I wanted to be like him.

He is my idol.

It is true that there is a division between him and me.

It's a bit like for Argentines what happens between Maradona and Messi.

And, obviously, Hugo has the chance to win.

What made you feel when you saw the video of Messi's harangue in the run-up to the final of the last Copa América?

I met him when he was very young.

I saw his evolution on the field, but not his evolution in the locker room.

Time, experience, being the father of a family and being the leader on the field for a long time have allowed him to bring out that leadership that he obviously had inside.

He is not an authoritarian leader.

I feel privileged.

I have met a Leo and seen what he has become.

He is out of series.

Did you have any friction with Messi?

Yes, but for logical reasons of the game.

Everyone has run-ins with people that competitive.

They are people who, in training and outside of training, always act like this.

They are fighters,

fighters,

competitive.

It is not something strange.

Look at the example of Messi and Cristiano.

Who was better?

They are two guys who never got tired of fighting.

If you're not competitive to the extreme, you can't sustain that for that long.

Until today, he continues with the same mentality.

In short, that is the key to everything.

Can Messi win the World Cup?

It is between Argentina and Brazil.

Both are serious contenders for the title.

Scaloni has made a great work group, of players, obviously led by Leo.

And Brazil up front has a lot of power and at the back they have very good players.

What face did you have when you saw Argentina's defeat?

I think I experienced the defeat like everyone else.

It was unexpected.

No one could have expected Argentina to lose against Arabia.

In the first half they had many chances, but due to offsides they couldn't make it happen.

It is the first big surprise of this World Cup.

And now what do you expect from the match between Mexico and Argentina?

I saw Mexico well in the first game.

Beyond the penalty, which was due to inattention in the defense of Mexico, Poland did not do much.

The one who proposed was always Mexico.

He lacked a little more clarity and depth to have more chances.

And in the end, perhaps, he should have risked a little more to try to get the three points that could give him an important advantage to go to the next round after Argentina had lost.

Now the situation is complicated.

Argentina is not going to sleep, quite the contrary.

He will want to get even for that bad result.

That probably makes it a tougher match.

What is Mexico for?

We are capable of anything.

I am confident that this team can make history.

They have a good coaching staff, an experienced team.

And in a World Cup everything changes.

It is an adrenaline shot to compete with anyone.

And Europe?

France is still a candidate.