IVÁN HELGUERA “Del Bosque was the one who spoiled me the most. Emery lied to me”

Iván Helguera (Santander, 46 years old) is another of Vicente del Bosque's 'sons' who a few years ago decided to keep his connection with football alive and became a coach. Like Fernando Hierro, Míchel Salgado, Karanka, Guti, Morientes, Celades, Solari, Raúl… The opportunity had not come for the Cantabrian until this season.

His baptism was with Las Rozas FC, in Second B. Appointed in May 2020 in full confinement, he was dismissed in a bad way in mid-November, in the fourth game after a draw and three defeats. Five months have passed and he tries to overcome the trance, but when he recalls the events, his face shows a certain sadness and his voice sounds like pure indignation.

My body has gone bad. I couldn't do more than I did. The club did not help me at all. They didn't listen to me. No one expects their first coaching opportunity to turn out this way. I was really looking forward to it, very excited. Being hired during lockdown I had more time to prepare for what was to come. I suffered a lot, I have to admit it. It was neither what I thought, nor what I had been sold. I am quite a sentimental person. It is not only working on the field. I am one of those who take many things home with me. Things about the players, the coaching staff, the president… I began to realize that being a coach is not as easy as it looks from the outside. And if the results do not help you, well, the summary is that my first experience has been quite bad.

Do you consider yourself cheated? What exactly happened?

It was a hard blow. I was surprised because the previous coach started the same, however, they held on to him and the season ended. The team was missing a lot of goal. It cost us. In the Federation Cup we won the three games with a very good game. But the League arrived and it was not what I expected. We lost three games where you could think you could win. I don't think we played bad enough to kick me out like that. At least we tried to go out with the ball played, to be protagonists of the game. One of the few teams that did it in the category. The sports director fired me. The president never told me anything.

In those months there were times when he had to take care of some expenses because the club could not or did not attend to his needs.

I ordered some vests for physical preparation and never had them. I had to buy and pay for an ice machine, an automatic pump to inflate the balls … That was not what I expected in a Second B club. I expected more professionalism. I thought about leaving even before the League started. I saw that nothing that had been promised had been fulfilled. But I had spoken with several players and some had come because I was the coach of Las Rozas. It was the case of four French footballers, three from the Real Madrid quarry. It did not seem lawful to leave them lying …

I see that he has not overcome it yet, I notice him very low …

It's just that I can't forget it, I can't get over it. And that I have similar experiences as a player. I did not expect to suffer so much. At first I had a pretty bad time, but little by little I try to think that everything is not going to be like this. It can't be that bad. Soccer is still my life. I am one of those who can say very loudly that he has always liked football. It is true that I am not yet able to trust anyone who comes and offers me a project, but I have to get over it and start looking at things for next season. I have spoken with several representatives, there have been some clubs. Not rush. I have learned that I have to do things well and not get carried away by the impulse of wanting to train at all costs. For example, of the 23 players I had, only six or seven had passed my approval. The rest, no. They were players that the club or the sports director gave me. They signed what they wanted regardless of their coach. From now on I will be less trusting.

I would try again in Second B …

Yes. I liked the category. I know where I am. Of course I would like to train in Segunda, but the important thing is the project, the people, the club. I'm not going to go. To be a coach you have to be strong. You cannot be carried away by sentimentality. You have to work with many people around you, but in the end the leader has to be you.

What will not change is ideas. He remains in his football thoughts.

That's for sure. I want to play well, have the ball, play from behind, attract the opponent… Of course there are times when you have to clear and send long balls. It's what I liked as a player. It is what they have taught me. I knew that with Las Rozas it was going to be complicated. It was a team built to stay put, but we tried. I look at Real Madrid, when it does, Barcelona, ​​Liverpool, Real Sociedad …

As a professional, he had 17 coaches in 14 seasons from Second B to First. They are many. Knowing the ingratitude of the profession, how did you want to dedicate yourself to the benches?

It's my life. I enjoy soccer. I know that being a coach is ungrateful because I have seen him with those I have had, but I also know that he has beautiful things. Leading a team is edifying. I did the practices in the second team of Guadalajara and then I directed one of the teams that makes up the AFE so that the players find work. I have seen how difficult it is to train a team from the top. For example, Imanol, before arriving at La Real, went through several stages. Few come easy. I remember Álvaro Cervera, he went through a horrible experience at Racing Santander and now he's at Cádiz, in Primera, and he's doing very well. Coaching life is very hard. And in many places it turns out badly, but in others it turns out well. I think he was the coach who earned the least in all of Second B, 1,100 euros. It was not a question of money. It was a matter of wanting to start training and experience the sensations.

And have you not lost the desire? Doesn't this bad start as a coach scare you?

As a player I had a tough career. What happens is that now I am 46 years old, two children, other priorities in life and then I was 21 or 22. I would love to be a coach, to have a career, but I also have a family. Before, for me there was only football, soccer and football. I never lost the illusion. Which does not mean that now I have already lost it, but I will have to go with lead feet. If the desire to be a footballer was not taken away from me with everything I went through then, they are not going to take away from me now because of this bad experience. I know well that in football it is not to arrive and kiss the saint. No coach has.

Cases like Guardiola or Zidane are the exception.

Yes, but Guardiola's first games at Barcelona turned out very badly. They wanted to kick Johan Cruyff for the first two years… Many of the best coaches in history had a hard time at the beginning. Clubs like the one I have taken help to be stronger and a coach has to be strong. Even from these experiences you have to get good things.

Luis Aragonés used to say that you are not a good coach until you have been fired three or four times.

Well, if Luis said that, it was because he had lived it for sure.

Of the 17 coaches he had, who does he stay with?

They all gave me something, even whoever I like the least …

Even Emery who didn't count on you at all … He played a game

The problem with him was that he lied to me. He told me he was counting on me and then he was not counting on me. It is not a problem of how he was as a coach. That's where the bad relationship began. When you lie to a player, bad. If you tell him clearly that you don't have him, the footballer either tries to make the coach change his mind with his daily work or he looks for life to go to another team. He never told me that he didn't count on me. He let me down in that regard. I can't say that Emery is a bad coach because he didn't count on me. He has his good points, but he did not behave well not only with me, but also with other players from that Valencia.

Your favorite? Who else got inside him?

For how Vicente del Bosque manages a staff, I think he is exemplary. Amazing. Try to get along with everyone. He suffered when someone did not play and wanted to win it by being close to him. It is not easy to have the way of being that Vicente has and to be a coach. And all that he has achieved has been thus. Zidane is a bit similar in that respect. Del Bosque liked soccer so much that he preferred to dedicate himself to the lower sections than to the first team. He pampered me a lot. I believed a lot in myself both to play in the middle and behind.

But once when someone else told him he was a bit lazy to train.

He told me he was a bit lazy for physical preparation. I always liked to train. You played 20 games for me and there was the first one. What happens is that sometimes it drove him crazy. He told me to go back and I would go forward … I was going my own way. Vicente is an endearing person. You can spend your whole life talking about soccer. He sees well what happens on the field and he sees the player well, what he can give him in games. That is his greatest gift, see the conditions of the player. From a kid to a professional. You watch it for 20 minutes and you already know what you can do.

Now all the children of Del Bosque have been given to be coaches.

Soccer is our life, our passion. And the next step after being a player is to be a coach. Many of us did the course together. Not Raúl because he was in the United States.

Iván Helguera's career as a footballer is reflected in his two Champions, three Leagues, one Cup, one Intercontinental, two Spanish Super Cups, one European Super Cup. In his two Euro Cups and a World Cup with the National Team, but in that long career he lived less happy moments that now inspire him. Many coaches did not count on him at the beginning, they even did not count on him. However, he never gave up.

I know a lot about that from a very young age. I liked football so much that no matter how much it might happen to me, I wouldn't give up. It was as if it followed the course of my life. My passion was so great that in the end I got where I wanted to go: playing for Real Madrid and the Spanish team. At worst, some players think they don't give for more and give up, but I always believed in my possibilities.

You see yourself without a team at 18 years old.

They kick me out of Racing de Santander at that age and to continue playing I had to go down two categories. I played for Revilla, in Preferente. When I arrived they were seventh and we finished second and we ascended. Back then I was a forward and scored a lot of goals, but few Cantabrian teams were interested in me. I went to try Valladolid. I played with the youth team, I did well and they raised me to the second team, which included Baraja, Benjamin…. The day before the test they hit me with a stick and my knee was like a ball. Things didn't go well for me on the test. They didn't want me and I had to go back to Santander.

Return to the starting box.

I went with my brother to try Manchego. From Santander to Ciudad Real, 14 hours by road. We tried and they wanted to stay with my brother, but not with me. My father told them that either we would both stay or we would both come back. We stayed, but we had to distribute the salary because there was only for one. It was 150,000 pesetas, which was 75,000 for each. We had to rent a flat and we couldn't afford to make ends meet. If it hadn't been for my parents who even helped us by sending food … We would be living badly. We did so well that we went up to Second B (95-96). They raised us to 150,000 each. I played there until December when García Remón signed me for Albacete, I was already Second. They made me a professional contract, 300,000 pesetas. My brother stayed in Manchego.

His godfather then was García Remón.

Yes, I stood out a lot at Albacete, the truth is, and he started talking to Real Madrid. He was a good friend of Camacho who was at Espanyol and he also began to follow me. I had meniscus surgery and I only played 14 games. I was never quite right from that meniscus injury. I was able to do my whole career, but I was always in discomfort. In fact, at Valencia, when I retired, it was because it hurt so much that I didn't enjoy football. He was only 33 years old, but he went out to the field and was more aware of the pain than the game …

His woes begin in Italy with a certain Zeman.

In Roma, he hardly played, but I learned to learn both tactically and physically. Without having gone through Italy, he might not have reached Real Madrid. It helped me a lot especially to play defense. It was hard for me physically. We ran 14 kilometers a day. In the preseason he gave us such beatings that it was impossible for me to leave the room. It was eating, sleeping and training. The body wouldn't let me do more.

He arrives on loan to Espanyol and Bielsa, as soon as he sees you, tells you that he does not want to know anything about you. That doesn't count for anything.

Exactly. Since I had to stay, I put myself where people were lacking. Even on the left side because Capdevilla was missing. Then he put me at the center because Pochettino and Nando were injured and he had no choice but to put me on. We went to play against Juventus from Del Piero, Nedved … We won 0-1 and I scored Esnaider. I did so well that he had to put me on. Bielsa apologized to me. I started playing central and also midfielder.

Why were the coaches so drastic on you? There are several who did not want him at the start and in the end he ended up playing.

I always put it down to my physical appearance. He looked like a weak, skinny player. Also because it might seem that he was not a person with leadership. He was a player who enjoyed playing soccer. But of course when at the end they saw me train, they ended up putting me on it and when I played, I complied. It was a chain and in the end they put me to play. He was not a 10 at all, but he was doing well in his head, physically he gave everything, technically he was good. He was a player who gave a lot. He was very supportive in the effort. In addition, he could be a defender and a midfielder. He even put me on the right one day Del Bosque!

And what did you like the most?

Midfielder, I came from being a forward when I was a youth. I liked having arrival, finishing. He always thought that in the middle he helped the team the most. My best games, however, may have been defensively, except for one year at Real Madrid that I was a show in midfield with Makelelé. In the Champions League I scored six goals, one less than Raúl, who scored seven. We reached the semifinals and won the League. The thing is that the galactics came and told me go back, these are very good.

What's the worst thing a coach ever did or said to you?

The worst thing is that they lie to you, but the worst thing I had was when they took away my number. They took the 6 from me to give it to Diarra and I had to keep the 21, which was the only one that was free. What hurt me the most then is that I had been at Madrid for a long time and had done quite a few things. The club took more from me than the coach. Capello could have said something more at the beginning, but in the end he put me up and I ended up being the fifth most played player in the squad that season and we were league champions. Then he was already half fought with the directive, he realized that he needed me and he put me.

That history of his with the club was a bit bizarre.

At first they were the ones who wanted to get me out. It hurts me that the sporting director at that time, who was Mijatovic, did it, because he had been a player before. It hurts that, between the president, Ramón Calderón and a former player, Pedja, they tell you that you have to leave Real Madrid. They even told me that I was never going to be summoned. That he was not going to wear the Real Madrid shirt again. They wanted to transfer me to Fenerbahçe and I wanted to stay or go to Valencia, which was building a good team. That's why the second year I already left. I had a contract, I could have stayed, but the same president, the same sports director, was still there. I can be one of the few players who leaves Real Madrid as a starter. It also hurt me that many of my colleagues, who I had been with for eight years, none of them did much for me when they saw my number taken away. I think it is something that has never been done. I did not feel supported by them. There you see the cruelty that football has in many aspects. In the end I was lucky I got where I wanted to go. They were circumstances of life and of football itself.