“Mbappé or Haaland? Madrid need a center forward”

Alfonso Pérez Muñoz (26-9-1972, 48 years old, Getafe, Madrid) hHe has been one of the best strikers in Spanish football, surely one of the most beloved, and at AS we wanted to review with him the most interesting episodes of his career (Real Madrid, Betis, Barça and Olympique de Marseille) and talk about issues of present and how his life is since he retired.

What do you do, what do you do now, for people who have lost track of you?

I have returned to Madrid with my family, after living in Mallorca for six years, and due to the pandemic I am away from football a bit, since I cannot participate with Real Madrid veterans in all the events we did. I collaborate with a sports forecasting company along with other ex-footballers, and now that I have returned I am more aware of my businesses and projects.

While in Palma you worked as a coach for the Mallorca Youth, working in tandem with Pepe Gálvez, then in the first team and you ended up in the subsidiary. Would you like to sit on a bench again or have you become disenchanted with being a coach?

I have been disenchanted when I realized that, in the short time that I have been linked to football as a coach, you have to be very well sponsored if you want to make a career. I have the feeling that sport presidents and directors have a circle in which they have a group of coaches and they don't usually come out of there. Unless you have a good contact line in a club, it is quite complicated, and this has disappointed me.

You also embarked, in 2017, in the candidacy ‘Arriba Betis Champion’ for the club's presidency, led by Rafael Salas. How did that come about?

We did not know each other and he called me while I was working at Mallorca and he proposed a project to get Betis out of the drift in which it was at that time. I spoke with Mallorca and they understood it perfectly, because they knew what I had meant at Betis. We ran for the club presidency, but it didn't come out.

Let's go with your sports career. You trained in the Madrid quarry, you played in the first team for four years and it seemed that you had consolidated, but you left. Which was the reason?

The big dream I had, like all the Madrid youth players, was to be in the first team for many years, and for me it was already a triumph to arrive, which is very difficult. You always want to play more and it hurt me to leave Madrid, but the possibility of going to Betis arose and it was a wise decision, because I grew a lot as a player and I felt important.

Is Betis the club where you have been most comfortable and most loved?

Surely, although it is true that in Madrid I have also felt very loved.

In 2000, your signing for Barcelona caused a great surprise and even more so your presentation press conference in which you said that you were a Barça child as a child, after your Madrid past. Do you think those words will always haunt you?

But it is that I did not lie, although I am a partner of Real Madrid and Betis. When I was eight or nine years old, my best friend was from Barcelona and I also joined Barça, I collected stickers, I had things from the club … Things for children. Later, when I entered Madrid, things obviously changed. I told all that, while at Betis, to Serra Ferrer, who was the one who took me to Barça, and it reached the ears of Joan Gaspart, who said that I was a great Barcelona player, and I told it at the press conference of presentation. But, come on, how many young players were from one team and as professionals have played in another, look at Raúl, Iniesta …

Did you get many calls from madridistas after saying that?

Well, I know that I was able to disappoint people who treated me very well when I was in Madrid, but I did not go from Madrid to Barcelona, ​​I was at Betis and as the team descended, the possibility of going to Barça arose, because I was there Serra Ferrer as coach, who knew me very well.

Is it true that a few years before going to Barça they already wanted to sign you and Van Gaal preferred Sonny Anderson?

If it's true, I was never aware of it.

Now it is more usual, but in your time going to play abroad was quite extraordinary. What did it mean to you to play for Olympique de Marseille?

Being able to have minutes and that Camacho could count on me for the National Team. I did not play for Barça and I accepted the option of going on loan for six months to Olympique de Marseille, a very peculiar club with a great following. It was an interesting experience.

If you had to choose the best moment of your football career, what would it be?

Phew! Very difficult … When I made my debut with Real Madrid, or when we won the League, or the King's Cup with Betis, or when I won the gold medal with the Olympic National Team in Barcelona, ​​or having played two Euro Cups and a World Cup …

And the worst?

Without a doubt, the injuries, which prevented him from having better numbers as a footballer.

What would you have liked to win that you couldn't?

A Champions or a World Cup.

And the title that has made you most excited?

To be an Olympic champion with the Selection in Barcelona.

You've scored a lot of goals, but which one do you remember as the most spectacular, the one you muttered when you scored 'what a kick I've scored'?

There have been quite a few. One, for example, that I scored against Málaga on a slalom from the center of the field that later I was lucky in the rebound before shooting and that I entered the goal, it was also special because it came from an injury; but I think that one that I scored against Kaiserslautern from the squad or another with a volley from outside the area to Molina were even better.

And the one that gave you the most satisfaction?

I don't know, maybe 3-4 against Yugoslavia in Euro 2000, why I did it and what it meant: in the discount, it was only worth winning in that match to go to the quarterfinals … People still remind me of it because of the emotion that provoked.

In that match, maybe people don't remember, but you saved the referee from a spontaneous Yugoslavian supporter who went straight for him with not very good intentions. Were you ever afraid that he would have hit you for getting in the way?

No. It was instinctive. I saw that ‘gorilla’ who went straight for him and tried as best I could, by pushing him, not to attack him.

With which coach have you felt more attuned and from which have you learned the most and made you grow the most as a footballer?

I have had many and from all of them I have learned, but perhaps, because of his psychology, because of his way of motivating you, that you feel important, I highlight Luis Aragonés.

Football has changed a lot, now the forwards are protected more and perhaps there are no such tough defenses. Would you have liked to play in today's football?

It is that I believe that due to my technical characteristics I would have fit more in football today. In my time it was more physical and direct, and now the ball is handled and circulated much more and is committed to possession. In fact, Spain won the World Cup and Euro 2012 as well.

Today it is normal to see soccer players with colored boots, but you created a trend by being the first, at least in Spain, to wear white boots. How did that come about?

Jesús, the general director of Joma, made me that proposal, with the bet of a meal in between, I put them on, I won the invitation, and it is true that it was a boom, and from that moment it became fashionable to wear colored boots. When I went to the National Team, Clemente would scold me, stand by my side and say: “Alfonsito, the defenders see you too much in those white boots …”. He couldn't get her to wear them.

How is your relationship with Joma now? Because you have been an icon of that sports firm.

Very good. I have a great friendship with Fortu (Fructuoso López, creator of the firm in 1966) and his entire family. I don't work for them, but in whatever way I can help them, I do it, and they do me. People still identify me as ‘Joma man’, not in vain, I signed with them when I was 18 years old until I retired, even though I had offers from Nike, Adidas…

What is it like being so young and having a stadium named after you?

The people of Getafe voted for my name, in that popular vote that took place, when the team was in Second B, and I feel very, very proud, and the club can always count on me for whatever it is.

I have seen in your networks that you have a great sporting activity: golf, paddle tennis, hunting …

I love hunting, and I also have to say that, despite what some people think, hunters are the ones who take care of animals, fauna and the countryside the most. As in all places, there are bad people, poachers, but those of us who love hunting always respect animals when they have to reproduce, when they have to breed … hobbies golf and paddle tennis, I try to stay in shape, and see if this pandemic ends and I can go back to playing football with the veterans of Real Madrid, who, by the way, has proposed me to join the board of directors of the Association Veterans.

I read that you would have liked to be a singer, is it true?

No, it was a joke I had with Mónica Marchante. I sing regularly, but it is true that I like it and I have the honor of having done it at parties with Ketama, the Gipsy Kings, the Del Río… and when there is karaoke I don't hesitate to go on stage.

I go with some topical questions. How do you see your Real Madrid this season?

It is true that it is not being one of the best years. He has not been able to sign the players he would have wanted, due to the brutal economic effect that the pandemic is having and because of the outlay on the stadium works, which is going to be even more wonderful, but I am convinced that he will compete until the end in the League and the Champions.

You, who have been a great striker, who would you sign for Real Madrid, Mbappé or Haaland?

Phew! Complicated answer. They are two different footballers, tremendous, with a lot of power and speed, but Haaland is more of a scorer than Mbappé and, of course, what I think Madrid needs is a center forward, because Benzema, who is very good, is not. But if Madrid could sign both of them it would be milk.

Do you see Zidane next season at Madrid?

Zidane is going to be at the club until he wants to. It is true that the results squeeze the coaches, but Zidane has given Madrid a lot and if things turned out very badly, the club would not tell him anything, it would be he who would make the decision to leave if he saw that he was not able to get the situation ahead.

Do you think Messi will continue at Barça?

No. It was already seen with Luis Suárez, that Barça invited him to leave because economically they could not support him, with what imagine with Messi, and, also, after the famous burofax last summer …

Where do you see him, at PSG or at City?

Well, I don't know, it will depend on who can pay for your token. Guardiola is in City, which is a point in favor, but in PSG there is Pochettino and, above all, Neymar, but let's see what happens with Mbappé.

What is your favorite to win the League and the Champions League?

Atlético de Madrid is very on track with the League, but I would not consider Madrid or Barça for dead. While in Madrid, we lost a league taking 12 or 15 points to the second. And in the Champions? I have seen PSG very strong the other day against Barça, and that I did not have Neymar or Di María, but to see Madrid, which is their competition, Bayern, Liverpool, Juventus, Atlético de Madrid itself … The motivation in the Champions League is very different from that of domestic competitions.

Thank you very much for attending AS.

To you.