The arrival of Jose Luis Morales Levante has a point of chance and bet. Juan Luis Mora, former Granota goalkeeper and at that time a scout for the club, He told this newspaper a few months ago that he actually went to Fuenlabrada seduced by a 19-year-old Argentine central defender that, at that time, he was facing his second season in the first team of the Madrid Third. But it was Morales, already 24 years old, who entered his eye; despite the fact that the signing was for the subsidiary and the ‘Commander’ was no longer Sub-23.
The player in question was Marcos Mauro, current Cádiz central defender, who tells the anecdote for ACE: “To tell you the truth, I found out late. Two or three years later. I did not find out until Morales was commenting on it with colleagues we had in common. “With him the shots were not badly directed and, by another way, football has led him to the First Division at 29 years old. His story has a crumb.
I imagine you know his story and that of Morales.
If I tell you the truth, I found out late. Two or three more years later, more or less. I did not find out until Morales was commenting on it with colleagues we had in common. In the end I found out and I got a good surprise in two ways: because of the interest it had aroused and because José (Morales) deserves the best and he did very well. I'm glad.
To put people in a situation: Levante goes to look at Fuenlabrada (2010-11) and ends up signing Morales.
That was the second year that he was in the Fuenlabrada first team and he was still a junior in the third year. He was very young and had already been a year old, since he was a junior, with the Third. They abstracted me a bit from all that. At that time he had no representative or anything. He had just signed a very small contract, but of three or four years with Fuenlabrada. Half the information reached me. Many colleagues told me that this team or that team was going to be there, but I really didn't know the magnitude of the interest. Many times I didn't even know. That year we had Morales as a partner, who was having a fantastic season, if I remember correctly he came from Parla, and we knew that there were teams combing the market in Madrid. In the end we did not achieve the goal, which was to enter the play-off, but Morales had a good opportunity to succeed.
Morales in Levante, as it is vulgarly said, has passed the game: player with the most game and goals for the club in First Division. Did you see conditions to reach the elite?
Yes total. Morales played with us at the top, more of a forward reference, despite the fact that he moved a lot on the wings. He played as a forward, accompanied by a second striker, and he was seen in brutal conditions. I remember that when I fell to the band it was a sure occasion. In the end that has led him to Levante. What caught my attention, knowing what a great player Morales was, was his age. It is known in football that when the youth train passes a bit, being in a subsidiary becomes more difficult to reach professional football. Not because of the conditions, but because young people often have more opportunities. You are following Morales' career, you see that he became a symbol of Levante and he earned everything with his actions, his games and everything he has achieved with the club. Whenever we have faced, I spend a long time chatting with him. He tells you that he is a club man, that it is his home, and that he is very proud to be there.
How do you remember Morales from Fuenlabrada?
Morales was an introverted boy, who had his friendships and jokes with some colleagues, but he was not the typical one who was making jokes in the locker room all day. He was a quiet boy, many times they called him the Mute, but really when he spoke it was in the field and that is the most important thing and what mattered to everyone, that he helped us achieve the goal. I remember a game that scored a couple of goals and in a category as even as Madrid's Third, with complicated fields to carry the weight of the game, it is of considerable merit.
They weren't misled with you, you've had a great career.
Yes, well, if I tell you the truth, my career is very worked, so to speak. I have always gone from small step to small step. Yes, it is true that I have been lucky that each year I have done better, in the group and individually, and I have been able to go up. Taking the opportunity that others do not have and trying to demonstrate with my work, my desire and sacrifices that I had in these 12 or 13 years. I feel very satisfied that I have got to where I am right now. I am enjoying myself as if I were 18 years old, I also tell you.
How does it get to Spain?
My story is a little different, because my parents never took me to any quarry, not because they didn't want to. They wanted me to have fun, to be my hobby, and for me to choose my steps. I start playing in a neighborhood club in Santa Clara, in Buenos Aires. Typical neighborhood friends club. I played there from six to ten or eleven years old, when the crisis in Argentina came. My dad closed the company and gives some workers the option to continue working in Spain. My dad, who is a very confident person, preferred to keep his job and travel to have the doubt of getting a job again. It was the turn of the whole family to come to Spain. The truth is that we appeared in Madrid because the company's headquarters were there. We settled down and I was two or three years without playing football in any team, until you get the residency papers and regularize your situation. One year my brother signed for a Getafe team, which is curious because I think he played against Morales, who was at Brunete I think. We played at Bercial, that's what the team was called. I'm going to play for the same club, one category less than that of a cadet. I do two as a cadet and one as a youth and a friend from school convinces me to go to do some tests in Fuenlabrada, because he knew that I wanted to play elsewhere and he was a boy who needed a push to go to do tests and stuff. . I got there, did tests and stayed in the National team, which was the second good youth category. That same year I was lucky enough to make my debut in the Third Division, I think there was a central problem and since January I was training with the first team and I was getting into team dynamics and that's where I coincide with Morales. I spent two more years in Tercera until we achieved promotion, which is what the club wanted.
He lived a similar situation to Morales, he was in a subsidiary structure for over 23 years.
I will tell you exactly how I lived it. Morales just left that year and we promoted to Second B the following year, which I think is the year that the Levante subsidiary loses the play-off but in the end they also go up because they buy a place. That year of Second B I also stayed in Fuenlabrada, we had a good season, we finished sixth or fifth. About to enter the play-off with a newly promoted team. The following year I knew that they had spoken with Villarreal and signed for four years. I signed with the pre-season very advanced, in August more or less, and I went directly to Huesca, which had signed Pablo Alfaro as a coach, who came from Leganés. He knew me, asked and brought several boys from our group and wanted to count on me. Villarreal did not pose many problems because it was a good opportunity to see how I developed in a strong team in the category. I went there, I started well, but it was a very irregular season, mine and the team. We did not enter the play-off, I had not played as expected, I did not have the continuity I wanted and Villarreal saw that I did not have the continuity that I should have. The following year I was going to be Sub-23 and the question remains as to whether or not I count for the subsidiary. They just signed a central for B, Israel Puerto, who came from Sevilla, and there was an overbooking of centrals. I trained for a couple of weeks and we decided that I should go out because I had to keep playing and I finished the last day at La Roda de Albacete. It was a difficult year for me, because of the expectations I had and because if I had left Madrid it was to have other expectations. But it was a good year, in a very limited team in all aspects, we managed to stay and it was important for the people. The following year Villarreal called me because I had to do the preseason yes or yes. He continued to consider it an opportunity, knowing that it was difficult to have first-team options since he was not a U-23, as happened to Morales in Levante. He was lucky that he had a good year and the club bet on him because they saw different things in him. Or Chakla, who I think I remember is the only case that has had a first-team record without being U-23 there.
How about your years at Villarreal?
We made a very good group. There were two or three players also above the U23, one is Carlos Martínez, who has 15 goals for Andorra, Fran Sol, Rodri … We had a great generation. That year we were a team that each came from a different story, but we made a very good group. We had Paco López as a coach who demanded a lot of you and put together a good team. He knew all the players. Rodri went to City, Leo Suárez was the promise of the quarry and he is in América de México, Alfonso (Pedraza), Aitor, who is in Levante … We were many who were able to arrive and that he is doing quite well. It was to be expected, but not so many people in the elite.
And at what level.
There are a lot of people who came and even others who stayed on the way and also deserved to touch the elite. But, what I tell you, in the end each one takes his own way and the good thing is that many of us were able to achieve it. That is very good.
In the end, football is a very limited super elite.
Exactly. Now we know that things are equalizing in the clubs and everyone is under pressure to create a competitive squad. The coaches for winning games and the players for adding minutes, because if not the following year you are in doubt because the market moves a lot. That increases competition within the team and in competition. It is the price, in quotes, because everything that comes is good, to pay to get to the top.
Totally the 'B path' to reach the elite.
Yes, that's why I tell you that, honestly, it cost me a lot. It wasn't hard for me mentally because, after all, what I was doing was trying to meet goals year after year. Advance yourself in your games, training sessions, as a player … compete, more than anything. But at no point did I set a goal of reaching First, Second or Second B. It was not my ceiling. I just tried to move forward. I was lucky that I was making progress. When I left Fuenlabrada I grew up in Huesca, in Villarreal I met a great institution and I trained a lot with Marcelino's first team … I made progress and after two good seasons in the Villarreal structure I made the leap to Cádiz. In the end it is that, to progress. With Cádiz we ascend and I can be lucky today to experience the institution from the inside. How is Cádiz as a club, as a team, as a hobby and as a city. The truth is that I am very happy.
He arrives in Cádiz and his life changes.
Totally. It is true that a professional club had already played in Villarreal, because, even if it is a subsidiary in Second B, it is super professional. Let's say it doesn't make any difference to a professional team. Then I had already touched it. But really professionalism, with all the letters, was the first time that I had experienced it in Cádiz. I had to live a beautiful year for me, we were at the gates of the play-off with a team that was made more for permanence. That year I really fell in love with what the club has been, the sentiment of the cadistas and everything that surrounds this institution. It fills me with satisfaction to be able to be by the side of the club when we achieve goals; like the promotion that is what people were longing for for many years, and being able to be present was unique.
All these years he has traveled hand in hand with Álvaro Cervera.
Álvaro is an introverted person, but when he opens up to the group he is a great coach and a great person. What I have always sought or longed for is for the coach to be as fair as possible and, in my case, I can speak in my case, he has been when he could. He came from Second B, I played many important games and he trusted me. If anyone is to blame for my continuing in Cádiz, it is Álvaro. Because he transmitted it to me, he wanted me to stay and I also wanted to stay. He is a great coach and I really appreciate him.
And how do you handle the constant rotations in defense?
Yes, it happens to us many times. I don't know if due to circumstances, in the end we rely a lot on the results, on how the team looks with certain players, if we have the solidity that we have to have. It is a great competition that we have in the position with Pedro, Cala or Fali. In the end we each have to understand that this is not about selfishness or competition, but whoever has to enter at that moment to help the team win by all means. Afterwards everyone has opportunities and you have to be prepared for when it's your turn. That is the bottom line.
At the age of 29, he premiered in First. How was the experience?
Differences obviously at the sporting level. If you don't make a game bordering on the remarkable, any team can easily score three, four or five goals. For us it is a very demanding mental work to prepare for the games. At Cádiz, as a group, we have always had to mentalize ourselves to achieve victories from teamwork and help. At an individual level we know that we have a handicap, not because we are a bad squad, but because of the level of the First Division.
Without Carranza with an audience, the film changes, I understand.
Not having fans is a bit of a detraction from all this. Last year we were unable to celebrate the rise as we wanted due to the issue of the pandemic and this year we have had to assimilate. The day that we touch again with our people is going to be an important day both mentally and emotionally. We are waiting for it to arrive.
On Friday they have a small approach in the Ciutat. Although it is a rival field, I understand that it is a pleasure that the situation is normalized.
Totally. Be careful, and I see it well from the player's perspective that you acclimatize a bit. After all this has to be gradual. It cannot be to return all to the fields because all the work that has been done so far would be of no use. I see it well because for us it is important to have a contact for the next season. In the end the matches are more competitive, there is more rivalry, more concentration and football without the people is less football. It stays less than half. So little by little, and with great caution, I think it is the most necessary.
What does the future hold for Marcos Mauro?
Well, today, my future is to continue in Cádiz next year and try to achieve another success like this season, which is permanence. The important thing is that the club and the team continue to grow in order to finally consolidate in the First Division. That I believe has not been able to do so for a long time and I believe that we are facing a unique opportunity in which we all have to do our part to achieve it.
And, by way of reflection, it seems that the footballer's path to the elite is marked. What reflection does he make of those players, like his case or that of Morales, who reach the elite by a different path.
Each one has its own way. Obviously there are marked paths and that benefit the player in all aspects. Because in the end they train the player in a certain way and it is, let's say, what it should be. But what happens is that not everyone has the opportunity to reach those levels of entering that path that is formed. In the end, each one has its own story and many times there are kids who don't succeed in one place and do it in another. Each one has to feel his team, his teammates, his club and try to achieve the objectives. And, even if it is not suddenly, hope that it can come. I tell you that I made my debut in the First Division at the age of 29 and it is the greatest there is. I still enjoy it more than if I were 18, where you may not be able to understand the dimension or you think it is one more step. For me it is a very important event. In the end, each one has his way, the fight has its form and at no time does it have to feel less with respect to other players or other circumstances. I have always come from the bottom and until this year I have not had a boot sponsor, do you understand? At no time have I felt less. In the end the ball rolls and to play. That is the least. Each one has his way and has to fight it.