Much of the blame for the success that Cádiz is reaping resides in Alvaro Cervera (Malabo, 1965). The Equatorial Guinea-born coach arrived at the Cadiz team at the end of the 15/16 season and since then his career has been immaculate. With him at the head of the bench, the Andalusians have managed to promote from Second B to First Division, something that together with the good start to the season that the team is completing – it is sixth with 14 points and has beaten teams like Real Madrid away from home -, convert to Cervera in one of the coaches of the moment.
However, the team he has managed to build in Carranza is very well recognized in Irún and Real Unión. Before reaching the elite, Álvaro Cervera coached Gal's team during the 10/11 campaign. Eneko Romo Y Iosu Esnaola, two of the members of that squad, remember him well. The captain of that team, the first of the two, explains to MD that Cervera “It was a lot to understand the player and let him play. He had very clear ideas ”, the same thing that is currently happening in Cádiz with Negredo, Lush and company.
For the current coach of the team that wears yellow, “the band plays were very important to defend because many of the goals that occurred in Second B came from there,” he recalls blunt. “I wanted the team to play in a certain way”, with an “own” character, and it was always clear “what he wanted us to do”, which was nothing other than “not allowing centering and making few fouls near the area”. In short, “not conceding a goal,” he explains.
Then, in attack, he always wanted a “vertical” team, but leaving it to the players, the true protagonists of the game, to “make their decisions”. Cervera He always tries to “give the player alternatives” so that “each one” takes his “creativity to the maximum”, analyzes one of the members of the Eibar technical secretariat.
And that is one of the strengths that have led Cádiz to show its head as one of the revelation teams this season. Those of Carranza They are not the side that generates the most chances, but they are the group that maximizes them the most. He feels very comfortable defensively and doesn't care not having the ball in his possession. The occasions always end up coming. Thus they have managed to become the best away team in the entire competition with 12 points, two more than Real Sociedad and Madrid.
Eneko Romo remember that Cervera he usually has everything very calculated. “He always said that to ascend the important thing was not to receive. With less than 20 goals against you were in the playoff, if you received 15 you could fight for the title and if you receive 10 you are champion ”.
It was short-lived in Gal
Iosu Esnaola was under the orders of Alvaro Cervera in his first experience outside the Real. In Gal's set he remembers having a “very very good group”. On Cervera, the youth squad txuri urdin reveals “that he was very strict. Tactically he worked very well and always asked us for intensity ”, he says. His workouts “weren't very game. He always organized short games, physical work and insisted on giving us speed to the game ”, recalls the current president of Orio Arraun Elkartea.
The pity was that “the year did not go quite well. With Alvaro the team was not doing very well ”and he was fired in December. Of course, since then “it has been seen that he has proven” to be a great coach, “where he has gone he has done things well”, especially at Cádiz.
Eneko RomoFor his part, he values Cervera's work in Irún very positively, but understands that Malabo's did not have an easy ballot. “He came alone, without a coaching staff. It was not easy for him with a newly relegated team. We had to give him a bit of motivation ”after the downhill pole.