Txus Vidorreta: "My dream is to be the head coach of a national team"

Between the ages of eight and 14, he played basketball, “well but not very well”, and at the Maristas school in Bilbao, someone saw that this boy had the “personality” to lead his classmates.

Thus began a new life for Txus Vidorreta (Bilbao, 56 years old), today the Lenovo Tenerife coach who a month ago was runner-up in the Cup against Unicaja and who is fourth in the ACB after the three largest, Madrid, Barça and Baskonia. .

Along the way, his other passion, journalism, remained.

The basket won the game over the radio.

Ask.

They are 41 years on the benches.

What have you learned?

Answer.

All.

At 15 years old she was very green.

Ten years later my first professional opportunity came, as an assistant at Caja Bilbao.

I am no longer the same.

The biggest evolution is my relationship with the players, I've had hundreds.

Q.

July 31, 1998. What does that day tell you?

R.

It is the deadline that I set myself to receive an offer and follow my dream of being a coach or return to radio.

Caja Bilbao had been promoted to the ACB, but I had no offers and I continued training amateurishly.

That's why I left my job at Cadena SER.

It was mid-July 1998 and nothing had arrived.

He had been without a professional team for several seasons and had to decide definitively.

The peak was approaching.

Ten days before, the UB La Palma called me.

That's where it all started again.

And here we come.

Q.

What do you like about being a coach?

R.

That allows me to feel young.

As I have small children, my daily life does not correspond to the 57 years that I am about to turn.

The worst is the feeling when you lose a match.

Now that I've been here for so many years and I've lost many, I know how to live with defeat.

Q.

If you were born again, would you train again?

R.

Yes, I would repeat my path.

Even my mother, who told me where she was going, would agree with me.

imagine.

A man from Bilbao leaving Radio Bilbao, which was an institution like Athletic, Igualatorio and Amatxu de Begoña.

And I left that job for another uncertain one.

My mother, until she got married, was a dressmaking teacher, a modern woman who worked at the age of 18 in the fifties.

My father had a graphic arts printing company, a family business.

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Q.

He regretted being a Poulidor.

Does being runner-up in the Cup and winning three FIBA ​​Champions taste like little for Tenerife?

R.

He talked about being the Poulidor of the Cup because we never got past the semifinals.

I said it as a challenge.

This team has considerable winning character.

He has played seven finals and has won five.

I have won six out of eight.

I don't feel Poulidor.

Q.

What do you dream about?

R.

I am very excited to start a career in national team basketball as head coach.

It's my mentality.

Being able to return not as an assistant [it was Scariolo's in Spain in 2015], but as head coach, to that basketball that allows you to enjoy a World Cup and Olympic Games.

Q.

The Spanish team?

R.

When I talk about national teams, of course I have the illusion, like any Spanish coach, of being a national coach.

But here I have two issues that prevent me from expressing it as a concrete desire.

First, we have an exceptional coach in Sergio Scariolo, who is also the best coach in history, not just in Spain.

And two, that he is my friend.

I wish him the best and I am sure that he will continue for many years in the national team.

I think of experiencing challenges that are essential on a personal and professional level.

Q.

How do you make the player not selfish?

R.

I have always believed in choral basketball and not depending on an exclusive player.

When I make squads I think of soloists but also of players who feel proud to be part of the orchestra.

Marcelinho, Shermadini, Jaime Fernández, Salin and Fitipaldo are protagonists at the offensive level, but we would not be who we are without Doornekamp, ​​Abromaitis, Sastre, Cook and Fran Guerra, who understand that they have to assume less in attack and help the collective goal.

Q.

Do you see Marcelinho Huertas as a future coach?

A.

Sure.

It is a computer on the court.

Q.

Do you like to control everything on the board?

R.

That is impossible, although compared to soccer, the role of the basketball coach is one of greater control.

We have substitutions, timeouts and it's five against five in a small field.

The football coach marks the philosophy more and the basketball coach participates more.

And I don't understand the game without those individual player decisions.

There are some more prepared than others and I try to give them more time on the ball.

If I trained in soccer, I would give Messi more freedom than others.

I want Marcelinho to understand what kind of basketball suits us and I give him the freedom to make the team play.

Q.

How many plays do you have?

R.

I don't count them because there are many and it makes me a little embarrassed.

More than plays, they are actions.

More than 100.

Q.

Can the coach be a friend of a player?

A.

I was friends with my players when I was younger.

Now I'm twice their age and it's more complicated, we have very different lives.

Marcelinho and I became friends 15 years ago and we continue that friendship.

He is a leader and I prefer that this leadership in free time be applied to his colleagues rather than with me.

P.

The televised timeouts…

A.

They should be edited, like in the NBA, and not broadcast live.

And not to give when the coaches do things that are not the usual ones.

The coach's job is different from the one they broadcast.

These videos do not benefit our image at all.

Q.

How do you live on the island?

A.

Very good.

I have three children between the ages of 11 and 14 and two of them have lived here longer than anywhere else.

We are one more Canarian family.

It is my second home and the first of my children.

The medium plays soccer and basketball, he is in the lower categories of the Canary Islands.

The eldest turned out to be a left-handed man with some talent and he dedicates himself exclusively to football.

The little one is a dance artist.

Q.

In the Mini Cup final, Landoure, a 13-year-old Madrid player who is 2.11m tall, had 56 points and 33 rebounds.

In the quarry, is the focus more on winning than on training?

R.

I believe that you have to train by competing.

Now it starts very early and in that process, until the age of 12, children, I only believe in training.

That is sometimes lost, especially coaches who, being mature, train children.

A young coach can be overly ambitious, it's reasonable.

But with veterans who prefer to compete than train at those early ages, we must do self-criticism.

In the Mini Cup in recent years we are witnessing a drift that does not benefit the concept of training at all.

Txus Vidorreta, this past Saturday against Joventut. Ramón de la Rocha (EFE)

Q.

Are you a soccer fan?

A.

A lot.

I have a passion for Athletic and I follow the Champions League, which is extraordinary and I don't know why they want to change it.

With soccer I disconnect from basketball.

My father died very young but he was Athletic's 200th member.

They made him a partner before registering him in the registry, something that used to be done a lot in Bilbao.

P.

What journalist would have been?

R.

I would have loved to be like Pedro Piqueras.

In sports I am envy healthy Dani Garrido in the carousel.

We formed in the same house.

Q.

Why do you hate social networks?

R.

Due to my character, social networks and I are incompatible because I would be in continuous controversy.

I try not to let my kids overdo it.

The networks are much ado about nothing.

What happens there is not reality.

As a parent I worry.

Q.

What do you think of the Spanish political class?

R.

I believe in moderation.

Between social democracy and moderate liberalism is the greatest welfare.

I don't like extremes.

The first governments of democracy had great professionals.

Then corruption caused the loss of a generation of good politicians.

I hope they can come back.

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