After reviewing this last season on a more individual level, Unai Nuñez now addresses issues of a collective nature. In the final won in the Super Cup and the losses in the Cup, in the frustration that an athlete feels when being defeated in the decisive match, in what can be done so that something like this does not happen again.
One title, two Cup finals in the same year. This past season, despite the final frustration, has been historic for Athletic. There's no doubt.
That is why you have to look at it from both sides. For Athletic to have won a Super Cup against Real, Madrid and Barça is very complicated and, on the other hand, having two Cup finals in two weeks, last year and this year, is unusual. It has much merit. You have to stay with that positive side and train and work hard to have a final again and be able to bring the Cup. May we enjoy it and the fans too.
What grade would you give to Athletic's season then?
I could not tell. On the one hand very good and on the other with many aspects to improve.
Impressive, in any case, the Super Cup!
Yes because we were coming off a somewhat complicated start to the season. We had a change of coach and that in the end all this takes so little to give results … Beating Madrid and Barça in a week and taking the title has double value.
Could everything you experience then, with such overwhelming enthusiasm in the rojiblanco environment, take its toll on you later in the two Cup finals?
Since I was little I have always known how Athletic lives in Bilbao and throughout Spain. All Athletic fans experience it in the same way. When you win a title, you look very favorably on the finals. With more optimism. But in the end what happened happened, the games were given as they happened and, as I have told you before, to work to the maximum to have more opportunities and bring the title home.
The team had come from coming back in each and every one of the qualifying rounds prior to the Cup final against Barça. What happened to Real that after Oyarzabal's goal did not arrive that expected reaction?
It has to be clear that we gave our best. Many times, when it comes to football, things don't go the way you want, but when it comes to work, you can't doubt. We did our best, but in the end we didn't play the way we wanted to. They were better than us at specific times.
When a Cup final is lost, in this case two in a row, does the footballer sleep, don't sleep, eat, don't eat?
It's hard. People will think that the days we lost the Cup finals we went to bed in peace. No way. We all sat in our rooms wide-eyed without being able to sleep.
A curiosity, by the way. With Garitano they scored fewer goals than with Marcelino, but they also scored fewer. What is your opinion about this?
That now we want them not to score goals, in that aspect we have to continue working and influencing.
Yes, but as Yeray told me a few weeks ago, one of Athletic's problems is that neither before nor now is there a player who has scored more than ten goals in Athletic.
This year Berenguer has come a little closer to that figure. I think it is not necessary for one to score ten or fifteen if in the end we all add up when scoring goals because it is a team effort. First it is about not conceding so many goals and then we will score.