“Maradona called my house to go to Naples”

José Miguel González Martín del Campo, Míchel (3-23-1963, 57 years old, Madrid) has returned to Spain after his journey at the helm of Pumas de México and has wanted to share with AS confessions, experiences and his vision of football as a coach and when he was a footballer, one of the best midfielders of the world in the 80s and 90s.

I would like to know your vision of the new football in these times of the coronavirus and if you are optimistic that this season will return to a normality similar to that of before?

I think it will be difficult to return to normality like the previous one, mainly because there is no security in the civil sphere. As for football in the coronavirus, coaches, players, managers and the competitions themselves have had to use imagination and understanding to cope with an unforeseen and complicated situation that is putting football under constant evaluation.

The League has just started, but who do you think has a better team: Real Madrid, Barça, Atlético, Sevilla …?

The teams have not changed their appearance much, in general, but I think the two most fit since the beginning of the championship are Betis and Sevilla. Betis, with the arrival of Pellegrini, has made a radical change, it does not seem the same, even having a similar squad to last season and a similar idea in the game. And Sevilla, which has not made many player changes either, is showing a great personality and a very defined football philosophy, and I think it will be better than last year, and that it was fourth and won the Europa League .

I want to ask you what you think about the whole Messi thing after the famous burofax.

It has been resolved as expected. I have the impression that someone made him rush, because Messi and Barça are condemned to understand each other. In addition, an ‘interclub’ conflict was looming that had a difficult solution, because no club was going to turn against another at that level.

What is your opinion of what is happening with Hazard and his injuries and relapses? Do you see in him a crystal player like Bale has been at Madrid or Prosinecki, with whom you coincided?

Injuries are the hardest handicap to foresee in football. Sometimes it is a psychic issue, for example, due to pressure, as it happened to Prosinecki at the time. Today players are much more careful than before and it is strange that injuries come from ignorance of some physiological aspect of the player. Hazard already has a suspicious injury history. But when a player is bought for such exorbitant money, all the focus falls on him and the pressure is more suffocating, and that can rebound in the form of injuries.

Let's go with your trajectory. Which team did you feel the most frustrated when leaving the bench: Rayo, Castilla, Getafe, Sevilla, Olympiacos, Marseille, Malaga or Pumas?

Surely from Olympiacos and Málaga. At Olympiacos we made a big change to the team and we were important in Europe. And at Malaga, because when we arrived the team was in a critical situation in the emotional aspect, but as there was a great squad it recovered, but it was frustrating that in the summer we were left without so many of those players.

Your last experience on the bench was Pumas, in Mexico, a few months ago. Why did you leave a few days before the season started?

For personal reasons. The same ones that took me there are the ones that made me return to Spain. There were difficult circumstances to solve, which had not so much to do with sports. I told the club that I could go on until they found someone, but they decided, with good judgment, that it was better to leave.

Have you ever been close to training Real Madrid?

Well I do not know. Maybe I didn't have a green light to do it. Surely because who runs the club understands from the technical side that there are other more qualified coaches. You cannot determine which team you will coach, you just have to be prepared.

The hackneyed phrase “it sounds like Míchel …” when a coach leaves a club, do you like it, does it bother you …?

Those who say it are surely the usual ones, those who cannot do without me … I think I am quite discreet, I do not lavish myself in the media, where I have many friends thanks to my collaborations and that I have been in this world for so many years, and it remains to be seen that only one of those friends has asked me to talk about me to recommend me. Those who say that phrase will want to discredit me, but they would be surprised how many times I do sound internally in clubs and they don't know it.

Would you like to train in England or Italy?

I am open to any destination, for that I prepared myself. Of course, I would like to train again in Spain. I stay informed and up-to-date, because since I started training many issues have changed, football evolves and one has to go in parallel.

In January 2019 you were very close to training Celta. What happened so that the agreement was not closed?

Well, Celta decided to choose Escribá at that time, I respect him, and I suppose they would see something in him that they did not see in me.

Who have you sucked on more to be a coach or are you self-taught?

I am a bit self-taught, but I have stayed with aspects that I have liked about all the coaches I have had, and what I have not liked, too, so as not to do it myself.

Would you train Barça or Atlético de Madrid? I do not know if you are traditional in this and would keep decorum.

They wouldn't believe us … Even though football is a business above all else, clubs are heavily influenced by the hearts and feelings of the fans. For this reason, if Barça or Atlético were trained by a person like me who has a history behind at Real Madrid, it would not be credible. Although I would do it as they have taught me at Real Madrid, to always win.

How do you see Luis Enrique at the head of the National Team?

Normally, the trend in Spain and almost all over the world is that the coaches have been or are at the end of their career, as was the case with Iñaki Sáez, Del Bosque or Luis Aragonés. But it is very good that Luis Enrique and Lopetegui are coaches with a career ahead of them, that makes them have a different vision from those selected. I like that the coach is very active.

The style of Simeone, Guardiola, Mourinho or Zidane?

They would put them all in a Thermomix and from there the most complete football idea would come out, as Klopp or Lopetegui or Pellegrini is showing in Spain, in these first days of the League. Before, everyone tended to be bilardistas or Menottistas, and in Spain, first we wanted to move towards Guardiola's style and now towards Simeone's. I believe that Spanish football is depreciating because instead of inventing we are copying.

Would you like to go back to training soon or do you prefer to take a sabbatical?

No, I am looking forward to training again, in fact, I have received offers, mainly from abroad, because I have no problems leaving, but a situation has arisen with my son and I preferred to wait. But it has now been resolved and I am on the market.

Team or selection?

I want to train, be it a team or a national team that has the potential to compete.

You have trained many players. Of them, which one surprised you and made you angry that it did not succeed?

I have trained in teams in which we promoted players and, without naming names, when they have moved to bigger clubs we have been angry that they did not have more continuity, because it is also more difficult in those teams. It is also true that many have not taken our reason when we trust them.

Is the figure of the wing player who reaches the baseline and centers himself, as you were?

I believe that the teams do not seek depth in attack on the wings as was sought before, the collaboration of the player is more intended to participate in the game, which is now called partnering. When you play with extremes, what you want is to have the possession to look for depth. With the new trends, the second play is more sought after and that implies being much more focused, not so open. The extreme midfielder is being lost and now the centers come more from the wings.

Who was your idol?

When I started playing football, I did it in a more focused position, in the position of Busquets, for example, and that is why I paid attention to Del Bosque a lot. He was a physically slow organizer, but with extraordinary quality and vision of the game. And I also looked at Antognoni, a Fiorentina midfielder who was very good and who attracted a lot of attention because he was a great pass in a football like Italy.

The Madrid of the Quinta del Buitre was a team that marked an era. Do you think that one of the great injustices of football in the 80s and 90s was that it did not win the European Cup?

In sport you cannot talk about injustices, not even luck. If we don't win it, it would be because we were missing something or because it wasn't our moment. The good thing about that team is that it generated an unforgettable soccer trend in Spain. If we had won the European Cup, would we be more eternal? Well, I don't know, but let them take away the ‘bailao’ from us.

With the passage of time, how do you see the two arbitrations that Madrid suffered in the two lost leagues in Tenerife?

I believe that large teams do not have to complain about the referees, who are subjected to excessive stress because there are many more plays to judge with those teams. For once they are wrong with the big teams, with the modest ones they err more, even with the VAR. It is clear that in those matches in Tenerife there were big mistakes, but the players of that Madrid will not have heard us talk about that, it has been more in the press and among the fans. Our obligation was to have solved the League before reaching those games.

In 1989 you left the Bernabéu in a match against Espanyol before the end of the first half. How would you explain that 31 years later?

I was under great pressure and was not prepared for all the stress around me. I went from playing for my neighborhood team to being at the highest level in a short time, to being known by the media, and that generates a pressure that you think that everyone is watching over you and it is not like that. That happened, I freed myself and learned from my own mistake.

I want you to reveal a curiosity to me: how many offers and from whom or who have you rejected to leave Madrid?

I turned down one from Inter Milan and one from Naples. In fact, in this case, Maradona called me on the landline of my house, because there were no cell phones then, my wife got on and told me half laughing …

In 1990, before the World Cup in Italy, Interviú made a curious report in which the stars of our football posed dressed as the eternal rival: Butragueño from Barça, Zubizarreta from Madrid, you from Atlético … In today's football would it be possible to achieve such a photograph?

That photograph should be possible today as well, because the rivalry ends on the pitch. When they talk to me about rivalry with Barça or Atlético, of course there is, and I maintain it and promote it, because I wanted to beat them when I was a player and now that I am a coach, like them to me, but I do not consider them enemies. We should take the tension out of all this because it is still a game and a business, but it should not go any further.

In the World Cup in Italy you scored a hat-trick against South Korea and your celebration was vindictive with a “I deserve it.” Why was that and to whom was it addressed?

It was addressed to my family and friends, who suffered around me. A week before he had been in the spotlight, like so many times, and it was an act of liberation, and everyone who had to understand it did.

Have you already forgiven Australian referee Bambridge for not validating the great goal you scored against Brazil in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico?

If it had been now it would be an anecdote, because the VAR or the Hawkeye would have validated it. Due to such circumstances, technology has been very good for football and not making referees famous like Bambridge in his day.

And the last: Cristiano and Messi are still competing at a high level, but the Portuguese will turn 36 in February and the Argentine will turn 34 in June. Who do you see his successors?

Bufff! I think there is a certain distance between them and those who could come from behind. It seems to me that in the market there is no such transition yet and I think it will be a while until we see it. I don't see Mbappé, João Félix or other players who could be at the level of Cristiano and Messi, who are not only very good, but the competition between them has made them voracious.

Thank you very much for attending us.

To you.