Albert Riera: from backpacker to coach at the Club World Cup

Albert Riera Vidal continues to increase its legend. His career as a player was unique and it does not seem that his career as a coach will take different paths. The Catalan was announced today as coach of the Auckland City, the New Zealand club with which he won four OFC Champions League titles and with which he will travel to the United Arab Emirates next February to represent Oceania at the FIFA Club World Cup. “We have exciting moments ahead of us and we will show our enthusiasm on the field. I want a team that creates opportunities and is nice to watch,” said Riera, who had his first experience on the bench last season as a West Coast Rangers manager.

“After seven years as a player at the club, we believe it is the perfect time for him to come back and we are delighted that he did. We will do everything we can to make him a great success.” Ivan Vuksich, President of Auckland City. Albert Riera, therefore, will become the third Spaniard to sit on the bench of the ‘Navy Blues’ after Ramón Tribulietx and José Manuel Figueira. The Catalan will have on his staff the physical trainer Adrià Casals and Eñaut Zubikarai, who has served as goalkeeping coach since he hung up his gloves in 2020. In addition, it is expected that Angel Berlanga, who accompanied Riera as second during the time he was out due to a knee injury, will wear short again in the coming weeks.

“My last intention was to play soccer”

It is curious that the story of Albert Riera cannot be understood without football when it was precisely that, the ball, that he tried to leave behind with his trip to New Zealand. The Catalan, who had played for Benavent in the Third Division until its dissolution in 2010, worked as a sanitary technician and decided to request an excellence to travel with two friends. “My last intention was to play soccer. I was fed up and wanted to quit, but my father got very tiresome and, just because he kept quiet, I sent an email to Ramón Tribulietx,” Riera acknowledged in AS. The Spanish coach, who had been in charge of Auckland for two years, offered him a contract and changed his life forever.

Riera never gave up the idea of ​​quitting football. In fact, after playing his first months at Auckland City and despite winning his first Oceania Champions League, he continued to travel with his two friends. A trip that was interrupted when they ran out of money and they had to work in the hospitality industry and in a kiwi packaging company. Yes, a continental champion serving glasses and packing kiwis. It was then that the phone rang again. It was Ramón. “I am planning the next season and I am counting on you.” “I told him that I had to return to Spain, that my leave was ending. But he knew how to convince me, we were going to play the Club World Cup and I signed a year that ended up becoming three,” recalls Riera.

Years later, what seemed like a preseason friendly against an A-League team turned out to be a new opportunity. Wellington Phoenix He invited Albert Riera to a training session and the result was not even in the plans of his father, who was the one who encouraged him to continue playing football on the other side of the world. “I was thinking about leaving football for good and I thought: ‘Damn, history repeats itself.’ After a day they told me: ‘This afternoon we signed the contract.’ Riera played three seasons in the Australian league and played an ‘All-Stars’ against Juventus. He had wanted to quit football and now he was between Buffon, Pogba, Tevez or Del Piero.

Albert Riera could not flee from football or in the antipodes. The Catalan hung up his boots in early 2021, after winning three Champions of Oceania and participating in four Club World Cups. A Club World Cup to which he will return in just a few months, although this time he will do so as a coach. “I am very ambitious. I want to dominate the game. It is something that all teams want to do, but not everything is capable of achieving it. Auckland has shown that it is capable of doing it and I want that to continue”, were his first words as a club manager largest in New Zealand. “He is the right person for the position,” said Ivan Vuksich.