“I left Spain because I was tired of being a firefighter-coach”

Soccer Cambalaches. From being a prodigy coach for directing the Spanish in First with 29, to emigrate, with 39, to Bolivia because Spanish football seemed to have forgotten what at the time had been the youngest coach to make his debut on a bench in the Division of honor, with the exception of a couple of occasional cases in the 1930s. The adventures and misadventures of Xabier Azkargorta (Azpeitia, Guipúzcoa, 67 years old), doctor of Medicine, they deserve a conversation. They are four decades behind the ball. Of Aurrerá of Ondarroa in Third (81-82) to Palmaflor (December-2020), Bolivian First club, passing through chili, Japan, Mexico Y China.

His illusion as a footballer was broken by injury.

I got to play in the youth team of the Real, but since I wanted to do medicine and there was no faculty in San Sebastián, I moved to Bilbao to study and, incidentally, play in the subsidiary, Bilbao Athletic. I got injured and the dream of being a professional is over.

And he began to prepare to coach.

What he really wanted to be is a doctor. As a coach I have always handled human bodies and what better way to get to know the human body than to study medicine.

As a kid he was more of the Real or Athletic.

I was always more of the Real, although I have great recognition for Athletic.

And now that you see them ready to play a Cup final, what do you think?

I drool. It's extraordinary. Basque football is teaching the rest of Spanish football a lesson. With Alavés and Eibar, he has four First-class clubs in a very small space.

Athletic or Real never called him.

Never. I have that little thorn stuck. But the thing is that neither Alavés nor Eibar called me … I have always trained outside the Basque Country and, it is curious, in Spanish football never in the Second Division. I made the jump from Second B with Nàstic to Espanyol and I didn't move from First until I had to go to Bolivia.

And you have not come to think that Spanish football is a little indebted to you. He emigrated before turning 40 and until now.

It's weird, yes, but that's the way it is. Nor do I consider that you have a debt to me. I am very grateful to football. I have also been able to earn a living in many other ways, including medicine. That at a certain point he could have done more in Spanish football, yes, but the church has doctors. Maybe my character to say things very clearly may not help me much.

At the end of 93, he became an emigrant …

Emigrant and pioneer in the art of training abroad. In those days it was not often that a Primera coach went abroad to export Spanish football. Then, the game that was played in Spain was not as attractive as it has been later, Selection included. Now, it is the order of the day, but I want to say something that may be strange. A coach cannot be considered complete and fully realized until he directs a qualifying round in South America, both at the national team level and in the Copa Libertadores. That's another thing. Neither the Champions nor the UEFA or anything.

Excuse me for insisting. So many years later, it is very strange that a coach who had been in the First Division for eight consecutive seasons and had not reached the age of 40 had to go to work abroad because he did not have a bench in Spain.

I got tired of being the firefighter-coach in Spain. The clubs would notice me when things were going badly for him. They used me to get the chestnuts out of the fire. Since I made my debut at Nàstic in Segunda B, I never lacked work, but I never came to a club with a project of mine. Always with the season started and the project prepared by other coaches. Only the second season was planned by me. When that possibility came to me, I was working for the Barcelona 92 ​​Olympic Committee and had my clinic in Barcelona. But I decided to take a step that was not easy: qualify Bolivia for a World Cup.

Let's review his history in Spain. Nástic. 1982-83.

Second B. We didn't get promoted, but we played in the League Cup final against Sporting.

Spanish. 1983-86.

It may have been my best time. There I had players who were older than me. The relationship was very good. We even did a play. I had started to learn Catalan at the Nàstic and I continued with it. He spoke to them in Catalan.

It was when they told him that he was learning Catalan because he wanted to coach Barcelona.

I answered that I needed Catalan to understand myself with Forcadell, Nano Soler, Sirvent … And that if one day I was going to coach Barça, what I would have to learn was Dutch, English, German …

Valladolid. 1986-87.

I had decided to quit football and dedicate myself to medicine. Cantatore had left because they did not give him the players he asked for. I arrived after the first day. All went well. It was the year of the play-off and we qualified for the middle group, the singles against married ones. It was neither to fight for the League, nor to descend. That was when, in a match against Sevilla at the Pizjuán, I put Chilean goalkeeper Oscar Wird as center-back and he was the best on the field.

Seville. 1987-89.

The memory is fantastic, but I faced the president, who called him “caragato” and the toymaker (Luis Cuervas). They were not clear on the objective they wanted. I met Del Nido, who was vice president. I arrived with the preseason done. It had been done by Wallace the Scotsman. I made my debut against Betis and we lost at home. And the following week we beat Barça at the Camp Nou. The beginning was tough. The second season came Dassaev and Polster. I had to have learned to shut up some things.

Tenerife. 1989-91.

I arrived in December. I can never forget the promotion we played against Deportivo. We tied at home (0-0) and went to Riazor all decked out, with a tremendous atmosphere. They were convinced that they were going to be promoted and we beat them (0-1) and stayed in First Division. The following season we signed Fernando Redondo.

Your experience in Bolivia begins. Then jump to Chile. They call him from the Yokohama Marinos and he goes to Japan. And then the possibility of signing for Real Madrid arises, in a facet that he had not developed until that moment.

It must have been because of my role as an educator. Valdano and Butragueño called me to be the director of the club's International Schools. It was to train hair-on-chest soccer players. No of children. In Mexico we created three schools with three universities. Florentino resigned in his first stage, I finished his contract and I left him. So maybe people thought that they no longer wanted to train, when the reality is that I have always been a coach and I still feel that way.

And then there is a second stage with Madrid in China.

Yes, the club reaches an agreement with Beijing Guoan. They had a coach, but no sports director and he sent me there. The contract ended and I returned to Bolivia and to be a coach (2012-14).

And along the way, in 2008, comes a bizarre experience. The signing by Valencia as sports director. He's not in office for two weeks.

That arises when I was in China with Madrid. There I meet Juan Villalonga who tells me that he is thinking of buying a club and that if the opportunity arises he would like me to be his sports director. I told him yes. Months later he made the offer for Valencia and took me. I was there for 10 days because in the end it was not done with the club. I had time to transfer Jordi Alba to Nàstic. It bothered me that Soler and company said they were going to dismiss me. How could they stop me if I hadn't signed a contract. I signed with Villalonga and what I received for my work came out of his pocket. I also remember that I mediated in an interview between Emery and Villalonga because there was a rumor that Luis Aragonés was going to arrive and Unai was nervous. To calm him down, we provoke the meeting.

Settled in Bolivia for more than a decade, Xabier is a citizen of the world who writes a book entitled 'Difficult to understand, impossible to forget', who teaches at the University, gives lectures on 'motivation and coaching', or sits on a bench to continue practicing the profession that he chose out of pure vocation. Little remains of his Basque accent, (he speaks Basque), shaped by his years in Catalonia (speaks Catalan). Learned Japanese in Tokyo and he made himself understood in China when it was placed there by the Real Madrid.

Xabier, your best business card is that you beat Brazil world champion … The news was on the front page of the New York Times.

On July 25, 1993. In the qualifiers for the United States 94. It was the first and last time that Bolivia qualified for a World Cup in its history. It was the Brazilians' first defeat in a World Cup tie. They had never lost. We beat them 2-0 and missed a penalty. Nobody could have imagined that we would win well against a Brazil in which Taffarel, Cafu, Mauro Silva, Rai, Bebeto, Muller played… and then that we would qualify for a World Cup. I don't know what that could be compared to, but it would be more than winning the Champions League now. An entire country was involved. It was epic. Also, in our group were Uruguay and Ecuador. And in the World Cup, so that everything would be good for me, we faced Clemente's Spain, who beat us 3-1, but they gave us a penalty that was not and we had them there …

The plane ticket that the Bolivian Federation sent him when he left was as if he had never arrived. Six scales. Barcelona-Madrid. Madrid-Miami. Miami-Panama. Panama-Manaus. Manaus-Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz-La Paz… two days of travel.

They wanted me to sign the coach's contract by fax, but I wanted to know the country and its football before signing. I turned to the Larousse encyclopedia which gave me some information and then I felt the ground and signed until the end of the heats.

Just arrived he received death threats.

Yes, but I didn't think much of it. We played the first game in Venezuela, which took us to Puerto Ordaz, the hottest place, we lost 1-0 and came back 7-1. When I got back to the hotel I received a letter and my mistake was to open it in front of the journalists. Yes, it was a full-blown death threat, as if to say that if we did not qualify … But hey, I arrived in Bolivia in October 1992, it was the fifth centenary of the discovery of America. It seemed as if I was another Spaniard who was going to … Someone called me an “illustrious stranger” when I arrived there after training for eight years in the Spanish League. I replied that they could be illustrious ignoramuses. The beginning was tough. I worked for some time with a policeman next door, to whom I ended up saying that either he was leaving or I was leaving. He couldn't work like this.

When he told his mother he was going to Bolivia, he thought he was going on a missionary.

Exactly. Nobody knew anything about Bolivia. In fact, when we were already going to the World Cup in the United States, at the airport they confused us with Libya. They knew Gaddafi and Libya more than us. As there was always a connection between Spain and Bolivia with the religious issue and we sent priests and nuns there, my mother, the poor woman, thought that her son was going on a missionary. It came out spontaneously. He had studied four years at the Seminary of San Francisco Javier with the Jesuits in Javier (Navarra). From nine to 14-15. At the age of ten he was already translating Latin. The Gallic War.

Have you already hung up the bench for good?

Nooo… I'm making my retirement plans because now I don't have a club, but my last experience has been very recent. I ended up with Palmaflor in December, a newly promoted team that we managed to qualify for the South American Cup, which is like the Europa League in Europe. It's like bringing a recently promoted person into Spain. They were wrong with me, they thought they could do things that I do not give in, my engagement ended and I went home.

He is going to stay in Bolivia forever, he is half Bolivian.

I think so, unless something very-very interesting came to me from Spain, I think I'll stay here. People love me and show it to me. I am still someone to them. They do not forget what we get. They have not been in a World Cup again. I think I am more Bolivian than anything else. My passport is Spanish and I don't forget the friends I made and still have in Spain. Here in San Cruz you live well. It is very hot, it is a tropical city, but it is a very open city. It already has three million inhabitants.

From his watchtower in San Cruz, he was going where he thinks football travels.

The interests have made it totally change. You don't talk to the players anymore, you talk to their representatives. The player who has a good manager is assured of his future and the manager who has a good player, too. It started to change when players put their own names on their jerseys. Before we fought for 'eight', 'six', 'five' … And there are absurd things like the most charismatic man at Nike, Cristiano Ronaldo, playing for Madrid, which was Adidas. And the most charismatic man in Adidas, which is Messi, plays for Barça, which is Nike. Soccer has become a great industry. If before football we lived 500 people, now 10,000 live.

And where was the game going? Now the trend is more physical, the tiqui-taca seems to be in disuse.

The game travels back to its roots from before. A lot of importance is given to playing from behind, it seems an obligation, but evolution tells me that it is going back to the past. Possibly it is due to physical wear and tear, because many games accumulate. But every time I see more long serve from the goalkeeper and the search for the second ball. They are also resorting to the three centrals, and I, in 1993, with Bolivia already played like that. Today the goal of soccer teams is recovery, not preparation. They play three games a week.