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With the Royal Society in privileged positions and identified with a pleasant style of play, the figure of a ‘baseball player’ like Roberto López Ufarte (Fez, Morocco, 62 years old) jumps to the forefront of today. Comparisons with the team of the two Leagues (1981 and 82) are inevitable and he who lived that from within and now from outside combines knowledge of the cause to get into the subject.
45 years have passed, what remains of that petit diable, nickname with which Prince Rainier III of Monaco himself baptized him in that 1975 youth tournament …?
It is a memory. There are still fans or colleagues, like Barça's Calderé, who call me 'devil' … The Federation directors who were in the box told us that it was the Prince himself who asked who that petit diable was after a couple of plays I made. Even then I liked to dribble, I had the ball glued to my foot, I was light… We beat France in the final (1-2).
Nor has he been able to forget that the next day (11-20) Franco died in Spain.
“This block looks like ours from the two Leagues and also the two technicians are from the house”
We were kids and they were moments hard to forget. Some were shocked. We thought what we would find when we returned. Some said there would be a war … We were a little scared, really, with what could happen, but the return was normal. As soon as I came back I played a game with Real Unión, precisely in Madrid, and ten days later, on November 30, I made my debut in Primera with Real Sociedad in San Mamés.
His coaching career has not been long …
It depends on how you understand it. As second coach of the Real I was from 1990 to 2001. With Toshack in three stages, Iriarte, Clemente, Irureta, Krauss … I once had to take charge of the first team in a timely manner. I was coach of Sanse. Sports director of the Real Unión. I went to Vanuatu. Then I was with Toshack for three years in Morocco.
The thing about the Republic of Vanuatu, in 2013, sounds like a full-blown adventure. We are talking about an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean.
“Now you can't complain, before they made us treacherous tackles and the referee said go on, go on”
He was a coach of coaches. In the year I was there we suffered seven earthquakes and some unbearable diarrhea. The other day I read in the AS that Caparrós said that the one who called him to go to Armenia was Ginés Meléndez, from the Federation, because he was the one who spoke about me to the people of Vanuatu. He knew French. A good experience.
And now enjoy a Royal Society at the top …
That's the word, enjoy. This Real may win or lose, but she plays well and the results support her good game. Players also enjoy it, especially young people. Things are doing well with the quarry. It is counted on and I have always been obsessed with the quarry. The kids enter the field freed, they know they are counted on. The good thing about this Real is that there is no starting eleven. Everyone feels like headlines. They all go out and play well. There are players like Silva, or Odegaard last year, who make a difference that is necessary in a team like Real.
Silva is to this Real what López Ufarte was to Real, double league champion.
“I don't know if he will give us to win the League, but we play better than any other team”
He has integrated very well, he is loved, humble, which is the most important thing, and accepted by his teammates and the fans. I am the least indicated to say if I was then the Silva of now, but it is evident that he has things that I could have. Yes, we look alike but in their case, or in Iniesta, who is also a player with a profile similar to mine, they have surpassed me because of the career they have had both in their clubs and in the National Team. I identify with Silva in everything related to the game. Now I am compiling videos of myself and I see that I also liked to go to the right side to find my good leg. They made man-to-man markings on me, and what they wanted was to take me to my side to the other side so that he wouldn't feel comfortable. I am also collecting treacherous entries that they made me.
It seems masochistic … that is not collected man.
No, it is that I listen to the complaints that are now on the entrances. For example Neymar, or the father who says that they have made eight or nine tickets…. They had to see the ones they did to me and they gave you ten until the defender got a card. Then the referees said… “go on, go on”.
The truth is that you were brave, you did not turn your face.
“With Menotti everything was correct, but when they threw him out I did not play again”
That's what Exposito said, a coach who spent his whole life at La Real. He said that the brave men were neither Idígoras nor Satrustegui, that it was me because they hit me and I came back, hit me and looked for the defender again. To be brave, you didn't have to be big or tall. I was lucky not to have serious injuries. The most serious was the kidney, that I had to operate when that was not operated and that almost removed me from soccer. I missed that match in Seville in which we lost our unbeaten record and the League. It was the first and only day that I cried for football.
Can that Real be similar to this one?
They have things in common, yes. The coaches, Ormaechea and Imanol, are from the house. They were both lateral. They are not afraid to play with young people. In our time maybe we always played the same games and now there is more movement. At the beginning we played a 1-4-3-3, but little by little I was getting into the middle, between the lines. The coach said that in case of problems they would give me the ball and I had to figure out the individual play or the pass. A little what Odegaard or now Silva did. Then there were no foreigners and now there are, but what continues to prevail is the people of the house. There have been games with up to six and seven players in the starting eleven and in the squad there are 15 homegrown players ready to leave at any time but they need a slightly more veteran player like Silva or Merino …
That Merino is a good player, he has everything.
“Futre and I got on well, but I wanted to play even in my area”
Is very complete. He is going well on his head, he has a route, he scores goals, good judgment, he puts his leg in … Although people say that we were champions, the players today are better than us. Now any player dominates the ball, he is well prepared physically, they are almost school footballers, academy players, many of them. We grew up on the streets and you learned the individual game, that of skill.
And the extreme-extreme, like you in your beginnings, disappears and if you do not play a changed band.
There is a tendency for them to disappear. Before we were asked to get to the bottom line and focus. Now it is difficult to bend by band. Neymar is one of the best in this regard. Bryan Gil, the kid from Sevilla on loan to Eibar, I like him. Work the band and center. The big teams dare to put people on the band but they change their feet to look directly for the profile of the auction. I liked looking for partners to associate with, especially with Zamora.
The question, or the answer, of the million is to know if the team will hold up there until the end, it also has the Europa League, which wears a lot.
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FOOTBALL 20/2115/12/20 INTERVIEW WITH ROBERTO LOPEZ UFARTE Former Real Sociedad player
Amaia Zabalo (Diario Ace)
Since the beginning of the season, Real has been the team that is playing the best. I do not know if it will be enough to win the League. Playing well does not guarantee the title because there are also others who play well. The second half against Barça showed us that by taking advantage of scoring chances, we can beat anyone. I like Atlético and Villarreal. Real Madrid has awakened. Barça will end up entering. He already played well on Wednesday against us. Although on the subject of Barça the noise in the club does not benefit him at all. Trouble affects the game. And the advantage of the Real is that it is linear, there is never noise.
“At Atlético in one year I had four coaches, the same as at Real in 12”
On Tuesday they face Real Sociedad and Atlético. A special match for Roberto because of his rojiblanco past. He arrived at Atlético in the summer of '87 with the star band but only 'lasted' one season. Enough to identify with the club and to be able to write a book with Gil and Gil's first adventures as president.
His departure from the Real was somewhat confusing.
Yes. Toshack, halfway through the season, invites me to go out and from then on I played all the games, including the Zaragoza Cup final that we beat precisely against Atlético and in which I had a relevant performance. He wanted to rectify and told me that I could stay but I already told him that in good hours …
Atlético had already called him with an ambitious project ahead of him.
I think it was Menotti who emphasized my signing. Gil, who is elected president that day and Futre are in Zaragoza watching the final. I think Futre speaks very highly of me when he sees me play because he didn't know me and he didn't have to know me because he was in Portugal. Menotti thought that Futre and I could form a good left wing and that was the case for six months. I especially remember the 0-4 at the Bernabéu in which I scored two goals …
Then they kicked Menotti out and the fairy tale was over.
For whatever reason, I didn't play anymore. They took the penultimate game out of me, perhaps to show me to the market and see that I was in good physical condition in case any team was interested in me. As it really was because Betis signed me. At Atlético I had four coaches. After Menotti came Ufarte, which lasted just over a week, then Briones and the last games with Maguregui, who had already signed for the following season and who, although he could not officially train, was with us and was in command. I remember conversations with him. He took me on the wing and told me that he had always liked me as a player … but of course he couldn't face the president. At La Real, throughout my career, I had had the same coaches: Elizondo, Irulegui, Ormaechea and Toshack. Then something similar happened to me at Betis …
Come on, he regretted leaving the Real …
I went out with all my desire to show that I could still play in a big team, but of course you find coaches here, trouble with the president there, that if the players went out at night, that if Arteche, Setién and someone else were away from the team… I couldn't imagine that this could happen in other clubs. At La Real, everything was calmer. As it happens now.
However, you always speak well of Atlético.
I have very good memories of the first months in the football field and as a club they have always behaved wonderfully. They invite me to all the important events they do: the farewell to the Calderón, the inauguration of the Metropolitan, a match of the National Team against Argentina …
With Tomás Reñones and with Futre he had a couple of anecdotes …
And many more that I don't know if they can be counted … When I played for Real, Tomás had always been very hard on me and I thought that at least I would get rid of the two games against him. But I didn't realize that I was going to have it every day in training and I don't know which was better if two league games a year or the daily firewood. And with Futre I had a good relationship. The thing is that he was too young and understood that he had to play wherever he wanted. Menotti wanted me to start as an interior and he was extreme, but his desire to please made him get into my zone and he took my place. I don't think he did it in bad faith, it was his way of understanding the game. I wanted to be everywhere. In the long run it was detrimental to the team.
And how do you see this Atlético? Do you notice a change in your style, in your intentions to attack?
I don't know if Simeone should be blamed because he always wants the best for his team, but of course this year he plays better football. Perhaps because it has players who have taken a step forward, like João Félix, Carrasco… who are level players. Against Madrid he took a step back in that change. He gave the feeling of being tired. Against Salzburg he had his doubts. I have said before that after Real is one of those who plays the best. Against Madrid it was more of the same or worse and Madrid, which was half dead, looked like airplanes and Atlético was not even aggressive. Simeone seems to me to be a great coach in his own way and by this I don't mean that I don't like his football. Everything is football in the end. The important thing is to win, if you play well, much better, but if you win with other weapons, nobody can argue with you.