“If one does not fall, another will fall”

You can tell La Liga is just around the corner. Imanol
Sheriff, in the media shadow during the first weeks of the preseason, comes out to the public light as if announcing with his sole presence that the moment of truth is imminent. The Real coach, through his words at the end of the friendly against Villarreal, has internalized that football is facing an unprecedented cycle.

In just three minutes of speech, sincere and clear, Imanol offered a bite of reality about the framework in which professional football is introduced. Mediated from beginning to end by the effects of the pandemic. “Strange and atypical” is being the preseason for the coach. “Short, very different from any other,” he says.

Imanol It shows to have assumed that nothing will be equal to the terrain known until now. “I think this will be the case throughout the year,” warns Orio. He predicts that in the Real there will be no other remedy than to be “pending the tests day by day” and directly assumes that “if one does not fall” in a positive result in coronavirus, “Another will fall.”

The picture is not easy. Imanol he advocates “knowing how to adapt” and relativizes the problem on the grounds that it is a collective evil: “All teams are going to accuse him”, he reflects. In the coach's opinion, “it will be important to have a wardrobe bottom.” The point in favor that he detects for his Real is that “we, luckily, have the subsidiary,” he details Sheriff.

Saturday, 90 minutes

ImanolTherefore, he closed more than one open debate with a declaration of intent that leaves no room for too many interpretations. On the one hand, La Real and the rest of the professional structures will have to abide by the strict guidelines indicated for a long time. And on the other hand, it is not far-fetched to deduce that the output operation in the first template will be reduced to a minimum. It requires, implicitly, that the breadth of the campus be the answer to such a complex situation.

The review to the present of Imanol It took place on the occasion of the third friendly match of the summer, which ended with a defeat against Villarreal. “It has not been our best game,” acknowledges the Oriotarra. “We had in front of a very powerful team that is capable of putting two‘ eleven ’of a very high level,” he added, accepting that “if you give away against these teams like we did in the first minute, it is complicated”.

In the first part, with all the potential starters available on the field, “the idea was to push up, although we knew that behind us they could do us a lot of damage.” Imanol he finished “happy because we tried”. The landscape was radically different after the break. “With all the kids, we have changed our style. We have given them the ball. We have gotten together a little bit more to hurt them in the transitions “, explained a Bailiff just as” happy with the response that all the team members have given against a team more in the Champions League than in the Europa League. ”

As the coach points out, “the tests will end over the weekend.” La Real receives Alavés (in Zubieta) and Osasuna (in Anoeta) on the same day. The coach anticipates that they will be “90-minute games for all players.” The idea of ​​doubling the activity in 24 hours will force you to divide minutes between the two games. “We still have to adjust things, we are missing a lot of important players,” recalls a Imanol that is shown just as whole as always in the face of the official competition: “We have to be prepared” for the first match against Valladolid.