Diego Nogales, from La Fábrica to professional football

The best memories of Miguel Baeza in the Real Madrid academy were in his year in Juvenil C. His coach was Álvaro Benito and they embroidered football. They made history: the first team from La Fábrica to win the Al Kass International Cup, a tournament in Qatar that accredits the best under-17 team in the world. Players like Kingsley Coman or Rabiot shone there, and in 2017 Altube, Marvin and Baeza did so.

The Cordovan midfielder, now in the Celta ranks, is happy when talking about that year. And he remembers Diego Nogales. Partly that season was so beautiful thanks to him. Nogales was Álvaro Benito’s second coach, and Baeza tells how he helped him grow and enjoy soccer. “They had never prepared us so much before each game. Before they gave us sheets to explain what to do or how to respond to the rival. Diego always came with his tablet and explained every detail, the strategies, to each player who was going to go out on the field. He had all the information we needed and he knew how to transmit it to us perfectly.“.

Diego Nogales made a career on the benches of the Real Madrid youth academy from 2016 to 2020. He was Álvaro Benito’s right-hand man and also Raúl’s. Soccer players who already appear in the elite passed through it, such as the cases of Miguel Gutiérrez, Antonio Blanco, Arribas or the aforementioned Marvin and Baeza. They say that he left his mark, because of his concern for the player’s development and his ability to read the game.

In July 2020, after finishing his stage in Valdebebas, he made the jump to the Unión Adarve first team. From La Fábrica, to one of the thriving teams in the Madrid Third Division. A winner arrived at Barrio del Pilar. Until February 11, 2021, Diego Nogales did not lose a single match with Adarve. The defeat was suffered in another neighborhood, in Moratalaz. From that night the press team that covers The Wolves keep a memory It was the first adverse result of Nogales in the Adarve, and they did not know very well how to enter him before the interview after the crash. “Mister, the first defeat had to come.” To which Diego replied: “No. The first loss never had to come.”

A winner who culminated a round year: the team was champion of its subgroup in the first phase. The second, against the first three of the other subgroup, was almost immaculate: five wins, one draw in six games and the promotion sealed mathematically on the penultimate day after overcoming the advantage that Móstoles dragged from the previous phase. It was not enough, however, to wipe out the difference with Leganés B (despite the fact that those from Barrio del Pilar won the two direct confrontations) and in the final classification the red and black team were runners-up behind the cucumber team. The premiere of Diego Nogales in the Barrio del Pilar was impressive. The confirmation of a coach who always wants more.

From inside the locker room they match. Diego stands out in the most valuable quality of the coach: he convinces the footballer. And she does it following his style. He has a knack for describing players to themselves. With Diego they recognize each other. And he transmits his ambition at all times, with a very marked personality. A guy with character and a close man.

The Adarve de Diego Nogales is the leader of Group 1 of the Second RFEF after 23 days of competition. Before the season started, the forecasts gave him as a candidate for relegation. Instead, the team has been a leader since the first day almost without interruption. He only got off the hook on the third day and by a difference goal in the goal average. Now they enjoy a three-point advantage over Pontevedra and a mattress of 14 to be able to play the playoff card and retain the ticket for the Copa del Rey. A tournament in which this season they took Lugo, from the Second Division, to penalties.

The Madrid coach has sculpted a squad with his mentality. Winner, adapted to each situation and brave. Nogales has used six different goalkeepers in his two courses at the Adarve (and a seventh played in his debut as a red and black coach, in the RFFM Cup). He does not tremble his pulse neither to change nor to tell the truth.

With eleven days to go, The Barrio del Pilar team dreams of a promotion that would change the life of the club. of all And achieve a milestone: take the title of Second RFEF to a team that has not managed to be champion in any category: neither in Third, nor in Preferred nor in First Regionl. Diego Nogales clings to work and to a fact. He has always managed to rise in all his experiences with senior teams: with Santa Ana from Preferred to Third in 2016, after taking charge of the team when it was in the middle of the table, 13 points from the promotion zone, and with Adarve from Third to Second RFEF in 2021. Álvaro Benito, who had him second in Juvenil B and Juvenil C in Valdebebas, is very clear about it: “The day they give him an opportunity at a professional club they won’t regret it. He’s going to take advantage of it.” less to go.