Luis Helguera, tough management in viral times

Nor that fate played a macabre joke on him, that Joaquín Sabina, teacher of teachers, sang Luis Helguera's second stage in the Las Palmas offices could not have started worse. It could even be said that this second start was even worse than the farewell to his initial stage, with that blushing descent to the Second Division being the technical secretary and with Toni Cruz in the chair that Helguera himself occupies today.

Happens that, just a year ago, with COVID-19 already boiling, the UD announced the arrival of Luis Helguera in response to the order launched by Rocco Maiorino, former athletic director that had conditioned its continuity to the departure of Toni Otero, the technical secretary at that time, with whom he had noisy discrepancies.

Helguera was presented on March 5, 2020, and 11 days later the entire country was confined until further notice. So, it was time to start the transition from home, only by telematic means, and the work was piling up. Catching up seemed like an impossible task. Not only did he have to deal with the uncertainty that all of Spain was experiencing, of course also professional football, but with the making of the team itself. It was assumed that ascending was impossible, and it was time to focus on not having trouble in the fight for relegation, which would have meant total ruin of a club that was already burdened by the poor management of the squad that faced the return to the Second Division, made at will by Otero himself.

Otero was known not to be renewed at the end of the season, so this was another of the transitions Helguera had to deal with before the Galician's position was occupied by Tino Luis Cabrera. With Pedri transferred to Barça since the summer of 2019, it was time to rebuild the team, even more so after the impossibility of keeping Rubén Castro and Juanjo Narváez, two of Pepe Mel's favorites, who preferred the offers from Cartagena and Zaragoza, respectively, both far superior economically to what Las Palmas could offer.

It was time, once again, to juggle at zero cost. Under this prism came for example important assets such as Óscar Clemente and Pejiño, and emerging stocks such as Rober, on loan from Betis. Neither Christian Rivera nor Raúl Fernández were found to be accommodated, whom the club wanted to keep in the summer in an ERTE that was already impossible to justify, so it had to be retracted. In a panorama of clouds and clearings, Helguera's credit includes the signing of Sergio Ruiz, a white blackbird for Las Palmas, and he owes the failed bet on Iemmello, that doesn't even stay in the club. Nor is it that he did much in the arrival of Jesé, because he already knows that the president of the club, Miguel Ángel Ramírez, enters the scene even more when it comes to media signings.

Management in viral times implied betting even more on the people of the house, who he knew so well from his previous three-year period (2015/2018) and on Pepe Mel, from whom there is no news of a possible renewal. Like a year ago, when COVID-19 hit us all. It also played and despite being an inheritance, tie the permanence without haste. Like now. Helguera returns to the starting point.