“If I didn’t believe in salvation I wouldn’t have come”. These were the words of Aitor Karanka after being presented as Granada’s new coach to debut with a draw at Atlético’s home that has turned out to be golden after the defeats of Cádiz and Levante .
Karanka has an interesting experience as a coachr. In England, perhaps the most powerful league in the world in both the first and second categories, managed to promote Middlesbrough to the Premier against all odds. From there he went to Nottingham Forest, an old European champion in the doldrums where he also did a good job. As intense was his stage at Birmingham, whom he saved from relegation in the Championship (second category) with hardly any reinforcements and with financial limitations.
In all these jobs he applied what he learned in his years as José Mourinho’s second. The Portuguese is a tactically methodical and scrupulous coach. THe has been able to apply all this in his British stage,
In a report prepared by the Daily Mail, Karanka captured some aspects of his main lines. He lives by and for football and puts in more hours than clockwork working at the club beyond his work as coach of the squad. A good analyst, he is not usually pejiguero with meals or with the control of mobile phones of his players. He conscientiously prepares the matches and uses video as a work tool.
A very interesting aspect is the importance it gives to defensive work.either. Just landed and with hardly any time to put the scalpel, he made his mark on the Wanda Metropolitano so that Granada would stop being that sneak that conceded 13 goals in the five games in which it was directed by Rubén Torrecilla despite the fact that the Extremaduran coach tried play with a line of five behind or four. In vain.
One of the most interesting situations that he experienced throughout his career was how he made Adama Traoré a better footballer. Both coincided in Boro (Middlesbrough). Karanka was amazed at his speed and said about him: “This kid is a Moto GP”. He corrected tactical aspects and he himself revealed that in the second half of the games he changed sides to have him closer to the bench and be able to give him instructions to continue growing. With this precedent we can deduce that players with speed like Darwin Machís and Luis Suárez.
It is clear that Aitor Karanka is far from Tony Adams. The coach from Vitoria has already done more in a game than the Briton who in 2016-17 finished off the Granada team during his absurd scholarship period.