Karanka: “I don’t mind being beaten for protecting my team”

Behind his sobriety and discretion, Aitor Karanka (Vitoria, 48 years old) hides one of those football professionals who made a brilliant career as a player and who is now also trying to gain a foothold in the elite as a coach, knowing and knowing that the difficulties he faces will be infinitely greater than those of his first experience. So, half in silence, in his own way, he played eight years at Athletic, in two stages and for half five at Real Madrid, where he won three Champions, a League, two Spanish Super Cups and an Intercontinental Cup.

On the bench, after passing through the lower teams of the Federation and spending three years as Mourinho’s right-hand man at Real Madrid, he began his solo journey in English football, where he chained three clubs: Middlesbrough (2013-17) with promotion to the Premier included; the historic Nottingham Forest (2018-19); and Birmingham (19-20). His great challenge now is to train in Spanish football, although his suitcase is prepared for any contingency.

-While the time comes, don’t waste time…
I try to be as updated as possible. I was an observer for UEFA at the European Championship. Now I continue in the Champions League. It is a delight. You watch live football of the highest level and you are aware of all the trends that arise. I also give conferences organized by UEFA and they allow me to be in permanent contact with coaches. Finally, I am already preparing the third edition of the coaches’ congress (AK Coaches’world), which is a very nice experience that has its origin in the ‘third half’ that coaches do after matches in English football.

-It seems interesting.
-And it is. When I first arrived in England, I did not fully understand this custom of coaches meeting after games in the ‘manager room’ to talk about the game itself or about football in general, especially when you had lost and you had no desire for nothing Possibly it was because it is something that does not go with our way of being. But based on doing it, both when you won and when you lost, it seemed like an interesting experience. It allows you to meet many colleagues like Wenger, Pellegrini in my time… and share ideas about football. This is what we are trying to convey to Congress.

-To have become a coach almost by pushing, he is taking it very seriously.
-If he says it because I became a coach for Fernando Hierro, who almost had to drag me to go with him to do the courses, yes it is true. But then one thing led to another. First I was in the Federation’s coaching staff and being able to work in Vicente del Bosque’s team, with Toni Grande and Javier Miñano and Fernando Hierro himself was an exciting experience for someone just starting out. In those years they won the World Cup and the European Championship. Then I was lucky that Real Madrid and José Mourinho called me. All of a sudden you’re on the Real Madrid bench with the best coach in the world and then my solo experience arrived and that’s when the little poison got inside me and it can’t get out.

-Can you already know who sponsored you at Real Madrid so that Valdano called Hierro and told him that Mourinho wanted him on his coaching staff as an assistant? Because you didn’t know Mourinho at all.
-I didn’t know him at all. When Fernando called me I thought he was hesitating and told him not to drink whiskeys in the morning, they were very bad. I thought it was a joke. When we got to know each other one day, Mourinho told me that he always liked having a former player from the club in his work team and that they presented him with a list of ‘ex’ with the coach’s card. He began to ask people he trusted and in my case he asked Mijatovic, Seedorf and Figo and all three spoke well of me. In fact, he told me that he could be proud to have such good friends. That is why I say that my character has always been the same and I want it not to change because it allows me to have friendships like these.

-An ex-soccer player with three Champions Leagues, did you notice when you started working with Mourinho that he had not been an elite footballer or had such clear ideas, he managed his facet as a coach so well, that this possible lack was not noticed at any time?
-He once asked me precisely why, to know that dressing room, to know the club, he asked me to tell him details in which he could improve and what I told him is that I would have loved to be his player. He is a coach who has everything under control: training, organization, rivals… everything you can imagine. When you have a coach like that, whether he was an elite player or not, it doesn’t matter much. What the player wants is to have a coach who knows, who has that personality and convinces you of what you have to do.

-You, of coaches of all styles, had more than enough…
-I think so. People often talk about the teams you’ve played for, the titles you’ve won, but not about the coaches you’ve worked with: Heynckes, Vicente del Bosque, Valverde, Irureta, Luis Fernández, Clemente, Mendilibar, Hiddink, Toshack, … So many, so good and so different that you keep something of all of them and even remember how they did certain things. The important thing is to take the best of each one and keep it for yourself.

-For a good connoisseur of Javier Clemente, as is your case, do you think you have points in common with Mourinho?
-What they could have similar was their character, the fact of sacrificing their image, their person, for the good of the team. They didn’t care what criticism they might receive as long as they left the players alone. Many times I thought about the strength you had to have to withstand all those criticisms to free the team.

-And you, as a coach, are one of those?
When you decide to be a coach you know that the most important thing is the team and you know that at certain times you are going to have to put yourself in the middle and in that sense I don’t care. I started in Bilbao when I was 19 years old and in 25 years as a professional I have had criticism of all colors, so, if at specific times, the sticks come to me to save the players, I have no problem. In England the criticism is a little softer than here, but yes, when I have had to, I have.

-You could say that as a coach he went to the cradle of football, like the student who is going to learn English at Oxford and Cambridge.
-I was clear that as a coach I wanted to start working outside of Spain. I would have liked to go to England as a player and it never happened. I had the immense luck of meeting the president of Middlesbrough on my way and seeing how the panorama is now, I also had the bad luck that maybe I will not find myself in a similar situation again.

-Spending three years with Mourinho on a daily basis validates many learning courses.
-And with his coaching staff. I was trying to be a sponge. Every second was an experience. They were like a paid Master. And also at Real Madrid.

-I have read in an interview of yours that Real Madrid devours everything, that the demand in this club is very abysmal.
I was referring to the requirement. Those of us who have been inside as a player or coach, see it as normal, but it is not. When I arrived from Bilbao I was already 23 years old, but at the first training session I realized that in Madrid you had to win five for five… and if you didn’t have the anger of your teammates. From the first day you realize that jokes are not worth it. Here is winning. And as a coach it is the same. What you have to be careful about is that everyone doesn’t have that mentality, nor do they understand it.

-It was strange that he began his career as a coach in England and that he still hasn’t had any opportunity in Spanish football. Now it seems open to that possibility…
-Yes. At the time I decided on the United Kingdom because of a family issue, because of the kids who were at an age where we thought that a life in England would be very positive for them, especially for their studies. After leaving Middlesbrough, having been in the Premier, I had quite a few offers, but I preferred to stay there. Now everything is different, the children have grown up and of course I am open to working in Spanish football, we are already settled in Madrid.

-From your words it follows that football is an open book for you. He assimilated and defended Mourinho’s footballing principles, and yet he has no problem publicly acknowledging that he loves Guardiola’s City game.
-Possibly it is because of that character that we are talking about so much and that I know how to adapt to what I have. Now I am able to see the best teams in Europe, but I am aware that if I find a team I will not be able to have those players from Liverpool, City, Chelsea… and I will have to adapt to the ones I have. Mourinho, due to his accumulated merits, was able to go to the teams and sign players with the characteristics he likes. I always found it funny that he is a defensive coach. In the League of 121 goals, a defensive team would not have achieved it. I also came from the Spanish National Team in its best period. We all like to play our best, but for that you need the best possible players. At Middlesbrough, I didn’t play as well the first year when I arrived, that we were fighting for relegation, than the last year that we were in the Premier and we had come up with a squad made for the style of play we wanted. I told its owner that if they signed me because I was Spanish and because I thought we were going to play like the Spanish National Team, they would have to sign Iniesta, Xabi, Xavi… and all those players. All of us coaches like to play as well as possible, but you have to have those players.

-On Thursday we have a majestic Athletic-Real Madrid Cup match. Its two teams. As a player he won, drew and lost with both shirts. What matches do you keep in your memory?
-I will never be able to forget the first one I played with Athletic. Heynckes was the coach and I must have just turned 20. Also, we win. That was unforgettable. The atmosphere of San Mamés. In Madrid Del Bosque was the coach. It was the 93-94 season. With Real Madrid, I remember one with Del Bosque recently arrived in charge. I came from not playing with Toshack and Hiddink and Vicente put me on. We won at the Bernabéu.

-Asking him who he wants to win on Thursday is asking who he wants more, dad or mom.
-It’s like that. They are the two clubs that formed me. If I have this character, this way of being, it is because I had the luck and the privilege of belonging to them. I went to Bilbao when I was 15 years old. Living the Lezama of that time was impressive. Howard Kendall was the coach of the Athletic and you ran into him around the facilities. I was a child and in addition to the values ​​that my parents had instilled in me at home, I met those that they instilled in me there. And I came to Madrid when I was 23 years old, you were a kid then, and I found myself with that formation, that demand. It was the passage to the total elite. They are two clubs that have marked me as a professional and as a person. I have lived them in two different times each and I can say that, although they may have different objectives, in the fight to defend that shield they have many similarities.