Javier Cordón and Rafa Barber reflect in AS: “Stages in formative football are no longer consolidated”

Football is changing or has already changed. On the one hand, the meticulous care of the great footballers has led to the races are getting longerYou just have to look at Cristiano (36), Benzema (33), Modric (36), Aspas (34) “The 35 of now are the 30 of before” Carboni acknowledged to AS. However, and curiously, this lengthening of the races has coincided with a earliest explosion of young footballers in the great teams who, either by necessity or by belief, line up in their eleventh footballers who have not even reached the age of majority. The living example are clubs like Real Sociedad (24.33), Barcelona (23.54) and Valencia (23.54), the three clubs whose average age is lower and that have had to place their hopes on the Gavi, Yunus and Oyarzábal on duty.

The path to reach the first team award seems closer and closer, however as the years progress it becomes more “complicated” and even in many respects it begins before starting. This is how they recognize AS Javier Cordón and Rafa Barber, representatives and career managers of the world of football from the Promoesport agency. Cordón has been in the world of football for more than 10 years and has been and is the right hand of Carlos Soler as well as other young Valencianists such as Martín Tejón and Ruben Iranzo, the last Valencian promise. Rafa Barber He was a youth squad for Valencia CF for six years and a professional soccer player in teams Recreativo de Huelva, Xerez and Huesca, Today he also works in the agency with an essential role in training. Both of them reflect from their role as career managers with AS on the growing role of young footballers in the world of football and how “processes have accelerated and stages are no longer consolidated.”

“Has been a generational change and a young footballer nowadays seems that he has an easy life and everything on his face, but it is not like that at all“Barber begins.” You go from being in a town, to having a radical change when you go to a residence, a professional club or a different city with only 12-13-14 years. Without a doubt, you lose a large part of an adolescence that would be normal. Personally, I always try to advise / advise from my personal experience “. Barber talks about his “bump“(in his own words) as the best example to teach and help the boys he works with, he considers that “there is no better way than to prepare them for adversity“Rafa was one of the highlights in the Valencia youth squad, international under 15, under 16 and under 18, but when he wanted to realize he had returned to Ontinyent to play in Third:” The shock with 20 years was enormous because it seemed I had it all in my handI was even called up with Valencia’s 1st team on several occasions (League, Cup and Champions League) suddenly and without practically knowing how, I was in the Ontinyent in the third division.

“However” he continues “Not only is there a path for the elite, not every path is Infant-cadet-youth-filial-first team. Following the steps that I have counted, I had the strength and the mentality of wanting to continue achieving my dream even if it was in another place and I packed my bags to leave Valencia. Later, and after 3 years of hard work, he coincided with Marcelino at Recreativo at the age of 24 and there I was able to return to the elite. “Rafa’s experience is key because, in his view, “nowadays it seems that if at 20 you have not reached the elite you will drown and you no longer have a way, but the reality is that if you want and are willing to pay the price, it may come a little later. “

“It is not easy to manage that pressure at such a young age,” says Cordón. “The pressure of going up to train with the first team, after having to return to the subsidiary or the youth team, see how another teammate goes the following week and you have also lost your starting role in your team …They are generally not prepared to assume it optimally. Many times it is because his own performance has been so fast that the industry drags him down and does not give him time to prepare, neither at the team level nor at the environment level etc. “” However “Javier continues” on the other hand it is good, that is face something unknown, feel butterflies in your stomach to go up with the first team. Facing something unknown is even necessary and eye of the one who a call to go to the subsidiary or the first team does not generate illusion. The best do not arrive, the strongest, the most intelligent and those with the most enthusiasm arrive “.

That illusion that Cordón comments is essential because it is becoming increasingly difficult to see it in some Academies “tending to overprofessionalization”. The quarries are producing more and more talent, great news for the world of football in general, however, It is increasingly difficult to see the ‘rogue’ or passionate player like Luis Suárez, a type of footballer that used to predominate and today is an exception. “I see all ages, affiliates, grassroots football, training … And me I am surprised how they robotize the player. In my time, I was at the Valencia Academy, we didn’t have so many restrictions, we had more freedom within a rigor. I am not saying that now they are bad training sessions, they are different, but as everyone is increasingly prepared, that forces you to mechanize everything much more. The player comes out with clear mechanisms but with the emotional, mental and personal aspect less reinforced“says Barber.

This mechanization of the clubs, of the Academies after all, has also come from the hands of the coaches of the lower categories, or so Barber thinks: “In my opinion, and I repeat, it is only my opinion, one of the main ‘problems‘is that nowadays it is not known if the training coach has the conviction and the absolute vocation of being the best possible trainer / coach in the entire academy or on the contrary, they are thinking more about personal benefit. The coach, in my humble opinion, of the Alevín / Infantil / cadet / youth of Valencia, Madrid, Barça … He does not have to be the best coach in general in order to reach professional football, he has to try to be the best coach , manager, trainer, inspiration for that specific category. You cannot be training some fry thinking of reaching the subsidiary and therefore winning “.” The child is not a small adult, “says Cordón,” I think many times the processes that people use around football ( agents, journalists, physios, trainers) … We apply the same to adults as to children who are in training “.

¿And what role do Javier Cordón and Barber play with the footballers who are starting out in this environment that has changed so much? “It is not easy” answers Cordón, “our obligation is not only to carry out the operations, renovations, transfers etc. That also, but do pedagogy and say things clearly to the footballer and his environment, truths that sometimes they do not like“. Those truths that Javier talks about are not always easy to say because” the world of representation He has a lot of flatterer and, I say it from humility, Few agents really take the player training process seriously. “And it is that managing egos is not Cordón sustains his argument with a simple example:” you just have to look at our agency, We try to attract footballers with a very defined profile and environmentPlayers like Carlos Soler, Pedro Chirivella or Nacho Vidal have always shown attitudes on and off the field that reflect what I tell you. “

Despite this, Javier maintains that “It’s not a good time to be a footballer agent” given the aforementioned context in which “the fathers They are influencing more and more, much more “and not always in a positive way.” In today’s football, players touch money from a very young age and the players’ relatives do not want to hear certain truths that agents say, because if we do it they go with the competition, they do flatter them. They are families who see in their son, who is just a kid in training who may or may not be a footballer, an already trained footballer and they want to intervene in the whole process only looking at the short term. One of our tasks in this process is to try to share our vision from a higher prism, with a career plan, trajectory etc. “

Despite all that cocktail of changes, emotions, feelings and negative or positive reinforcements, Promoesport, Cordón y Barber’s agency, and Cordón in particular, have one of the jewels of Spanish football: Carlos Soler. For Javier, Carlos’s path is a definition of all the emotions to be managed a footballer since he was young: “Carlos is true that at the age of 8 he already entered the Valencia Academy and even a first-year cadet everything was shot. Club, Valencian, Spanish team … But then In Cadets he did not go to the national team, neither Valencian nor Spanish. In juveniles either. And in Valencia he was not a titular player. With doubts with people from the Academy. At the Mestalla it was not easy either, he had to start very little by little, with Curro Torres he was not a starter. In the U-21 he entered the last list to go to the European Championship in Poland, at the last minute. It has not been all sewing and singing“Exposes.” Where I want to go “continues” is that welcome be all that lived path. With the first team he was in 14 calls before playing, that of course the illusion of the beginning passes you. Many times he heated up for 45 minutes so as not to play. Frustrations have had many, but welcome is that. Poor little one that everything goes well“concludes.