MADRID, 26 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Rayo Vallecano manager Íñigo Pérez welcomed the signing of a “player with great standing” like Colombian James Rodríguez, who will still have to “wait” to see on the pitch, and acknowledged that he will have to act as a “guide so that he feels comfortable and gets the most out of it”, while he called for a “complex match” this Tuesday against an FC Barcelona that he is enjoying and against which they must be “awake so as not to be run over”.
“I said the other day that he was a player with a great hierarchy in the world of football and now it’s up to us to take advantage of him, to get the most out of him, and for now we’re all going to have to wait because he’s just finished the Copa America and is on a break and we have to go little by little. I understand that we’ll all have to calm down this desire, but the important thing is that he’s arrived and I see enthusiasm in the people,” said Pérez at a press conference.
The Rayo coach confirmed that he was able to speak a little with the new player to “welcome him to the club” and stressed that he will not have problems adapting because the adaptation of all those who arrive “is practically immediate.” “I have expressed my opinion publicly a few days ago, but I have not been in the negotiations nor do I intend to be in this or any other. There are people who are dedicated to this and it is clear that they do it well because he is a great addition for us,” he concluded.
Now, he has the “challenge” of managing a player of such quality and whose “credit has been earned by himself.” “My experience with people who have won a lot of games in the elite, who have played in great teams, is that the more they have achieved there are two ways, one is that they are inaccessible to the rest or they are people who do not fail for a single second on a day-to-day basis, in training, in the match, on a human level, on a sporting level. If he is here, I think it will be the second way,” he said.
“It’s important that a club like Rayo Vallecano can be an object of desire or that players with the career and trajectory that he has, who a month ago was the best player in an international tournament (Copa América) want to be here, because it’s obvious that they want to be here. Now it’s up to me as a guide, to try to make him feel comfortable and get the most out of it,” he added.
The former player is also clear that “the bar” for his team, despite the arrival of a player of such quality, “is the same” and that the “first objective” is to stay up, while he sees James Rodríguez being able to play “in the three attacking midfielders” that his team usually uses, but that he can also play as an “‘8′”. “He is a player who interprets the game well, has a very high level and will do well in any position for sure,” he considered.
The Navarrese player indicated that “everyone” is looking forward to playing in Vallecas again, especially after two games in which they have “found the idea” that they like. “First, we have to maintain that enthusiasm from when we were good and then they don’t get everything or almost everything right,” he stressed.
Pérez does not know if he will make rotations because he does not look at his teams “based on whether they play Sunday, Wednesday, Sunday” and he assured that he has “players who are physically prepared if necessary to play three games in a row”
“WE HAVE TO USE THE EXCITEMENT OF PLAYING IN VALLECAS IN A FAIR PERCENTAGE”
The Rayo Vallecano coach did not want to comment “on the FC Barcelona signings”, a team that he is “liking” from a sporting point of view and whose young players have surprised him. “It is not easy at that age to perform as they are,” he said. “I see a clear progression from the first pre-season match to the other day against Athletic and it means that they are taking on the ideas, the style, the mechanisms of the new coach,” he explained.
“I expect a difficult match even though we have had a good run against them in the last few games and won, but every game is a new story,” stressed Pérez, referring to the fact that Rayo have not lost in their last three matches in Vallecas against the Blaugranas, with two wins and one draw.
Pérez does not forget that every coach, as is the case with Hansi Flick, “always tries to dress the teams with his ideas.” “They maintain the mechanisms of the Barça idea, which is well known to everyone, and they continue to do it very well, but I do see a change in terms of aggressiveness, in terms of pressing, on a physical level, perhaps also motivated by the change of coach, by youth and by that enthusiasm. It will be a match in which we have to be alert so as not to be run over,” he said.
“We are really looking forward to playing in Vallecas. We’re coming off two away games and I can imagine how the crowd will be, how they will receive us after the summer, but we have to use that emotion in the right amount so that it doesn’t take its toll on us and we already know what usually happens when you only play with your heart. We have to have a combination of both for us to do well,” demanded the coach of the red-and-white team.
He also doesn’t forget that they will face players of “quality” like Lamine Yamal and Robert Lewandowski, against whom “collective behaviour is essential to stop them.” “We want to maintain a high defensive collective behaviour as we have in these first two games and, apart from the fact that we shot poorly the other day in Getafe, I think that one of the solid bases for staying in the First Division is to be good defensively,” he explained.
Finally, on an individual level, he confessed that striker Sergio Camello gives them “joy” and “the spark outside the dressing room”. He is lively, he is doing well now, he has scored goals, and I have always said that he is a player that I have loved since he arrived. I think he is a very interesting player, he has to improve, like everyone else, but he is young and has the potential to do so,” he said.