Marcelino is one of the luxury speakers at the Elite Soccer Congress organized by Fútbol-Táctico Group and Diario AS. He will answer questions related to his idea of football and the evolution he has seen in the game since he started training. The Athletic coach is on vacation in his homeland, Asturias, but makes a gap for AS to advance some of the issues that will be discussed in the congress.
Has current football changed a lot compared to when you started training?
Today's football is very different from the one in which I played or was educated. The work methodologies used daily are very different from the previous ones. Now there is a much more globalized and measured training than at that time, where it seemed that the tasks in physical work and football did not exactly complement each other. Now tasks are applied to work on the football concepts that are to be applied to the team measured through the appropriate volumes and intensities to arrive at the game in the best possible physical condition.
The technical bodies are becoming more extensive, all parceled out under the common roof of an idea that the coach advocates. All gear must be well greased.
Totally. I remember when I was a player, neither individual nor group videos were used, neither of the rival nor of your team. And now visualization is a very important part of every coaching staff's job. The analysis of the rival before was minimal, an appreciation or an interlocution of the coach with the players, without an analysis as deep as now.
Can you give an example about this?
Yes, a few years ago we did not have a server like Mediacoach, where, apart from having all Primera matches recorded in a panoramic image, we have a statistical analysis of all facets of the game and all physical, technical and tactical parameters. From that point of view, football has evolved a lot and has taken a quite different path from the one I knew when I was a player.
What references do you have in football?
I had two clear principles in my principles: Sacchi, because his Milan was a perfect machine in all aspects of the game, both attack and defense and transitions. And I also paid attention to Rafa Benítez, a great coach. Their teams had a clear identity, with differences but similar concepts to that Milan. They were coaches who had earned all their credit without having been footballers of a very high level. They achieved great performance with their work and efficiency.
He usually talks a lot about the process and the result. And that they are linked.
Soccer is a collective sport that starts with the organization and the organization is a process. Individual decision-making and success, especially in the areas, define the parties. Individuals win games, but it is teams that achieve goals. From that point of view, the process in which the team is competitive in all areas of the field and demonstrates that effectiveness from the collective point of view is what will lead you to favorable results in the medium and long term.
The most difficult thing in this process is to convince the player when defeat comes that the road is good …
You first come up with an idea that you think is going to be a winner. The coach always tries to capture in his team that the idea of the game that is practiced will be the one that leads to victory. In the repetition of the defeat, the footballer stops believing. Permanently reaping losses leads to the coach usually leaving his job. I would distinguish what a specific defeat is, when the team is close to winning but does not do so due to small details, which is what has happened to us at Athletic this year, in which the team proved to be competitive and did not lose. If he is lost regularly, the coach has to understand that we are making a mistake in what is the right method and idea of the game to achieve good results.
Is creativity in soccer only limited to the offensive facet?
Every soccer player who has talent has creativity to attack and to defend. These talented footballers have more attack mentality, that's true. Creativity is not only influenced by technical ability, but also decision-making, that is, mastery of the game and the intelligence to develop that mastery. The placement, the reading of the game, interpreting the opponent's action, the responses in terms of intuition and the defensive technical action … they have creativity. A defensive action that many times is not given importance such as clearance, for me it has it a lot, because it allows you to direct the ball towards a teammate or an area where the opponent cannot have influence in terms of danger on your team.