The season ends for Athletic with a bad taste in the mouth. At a sports and extra-sports level. Raúl García makes a brief review of what happened during this campaign.
The season is over!
A rare and quite hard season, in the sense not only of the issue of society, as everything is, but of finishing last year late, having fewer holidays, no audience, a change of coach, the finals …
What balance do you make at the Athletic level?
When a season is over, you have to put everything in the balance. An irregular season where there have been many ups and downs, which is what we should focus on to find that regularity that gives you more things. There have been very good things, such as the finals and winning a title, but it is true that at the league level and the feeling that we were left with with the two lost Cup finals is what makes us think of a season a little worse.
One season, at the Athletic level, with a change of coach included. Something that is not usually usual either.
When there is a stability; On a social level, people are happy, the club is calm and the squad is good. Everything is easier. When there are situations that go a bit out of the ordinary, on the other hand, it is not good for the team. I also understand that being in the club where we are, that there is a change of coach is not a good sign.
To what extent did it take its toll on the team for not having won the Cup final against Real?
You never know what it would have been, but it is true that the feeling has been “well, things haven't turned out the way we thought they could.” The illusion has been there and it is clear that we all had the thought that we could win that title and it has come out the other way around. You had to assimilate it at a time when another final is coming, in which in the League you are still there with options to achieve something more. It's complicated. It is true that, without knowing for sure, because we will never know what would have happened, the bump was great and the feeling of not having achieved something that we could achieve hurt.
Damage to the point that Muniain and Yuri have not played since the Cup final against Barça, Williams admits to being physically and emotionally ill, Iñigo Martínez renounces going to the Eurocup. What a toll!
We always talk about the same thing. It seems that the player neither feels nor suffers and it is quite the opposite. This is part of our job and in the end, when there are beautiful goals and they are within reach, the first to take the hit is us. Sometimes I find it incomprehensible to hear the typical “if they don't care” phrases.
And what can be said to those who think like this?
Well no. To those of us who are inside and experience this, these things do us a lot of harm. When one speaks, as Iñigo has done, that on a mental level it has been very hard, I add that most of the staff would say the same because it has been a year with many things, dragging what the whole society is dragging and with that sports and physical demand that we have had, including hits suffered.