“Qatar 2022 will be spectacular”

Josué Linares Díez (Talavera de la Reina, December 23, 1991) has been appointed FIFA ambassador for the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Linares, of La Mancha origin, although settled in A coruña Since he was 11 years old, he has been in charge of recruiting FIFA talent and counts on ACE his work within the highest organization of world football, the application of IQ Scouting to discover the talent and what the Qatar World Cup 2022 will be.

With a year and a half to go until the largest national team tournament in the world, the new FIFA ambassador in Spain has a long history at the age of 29, having traveled half the world starting from Galicia and, among others, through the quarries of Barcelona, ​​Chelsea , New York Red Bull, Beijing Goan and the Finnish federation.

– What work do you do within FIFA?

The position that I am going to occupy at FIFA is to lead three different projects within what is FIFA, the FIFA Foundation and the FIFA Fan Movement. All three are deeply rooted in the psychological part of what the athlete and the person are. One of them is to prevent and detect mental illnesses caused by sports such as bullying, adolescent suicide and abuse. A year ago I started working with the Federation of Finland on this because Finland and Sweden are the countries with the highest youth suicide rate in the world, something rare because educationally it is a world power. That's where I started researching these objects and developing them with them.

Another project in which I am going to work with FIFA is in the detection and recruitment of the athlete's talent, but not merely sports talent but the talent to be creative and to see if in the future they will have the facilities to study a career. Use football so that the person is not lost, something that unfortunately happens a lot. The third project is of equality for both men and women and also for children from underdeveloped countries.

– How did you get to this position?

It was by chance. I had an interview with a Mexican boy a few months ago that I coached when I was at MARCET (soccer school based in Barcelona) when I was 23 years old. He called me to do an interview through Instagram. A FIFA member attended that meeting without my knowledge. I discussed my career and then a FIFA member called me. He told me that he had been present at the meeting, that he was fascinated by everything he had done, and that he would love to pass on all the information he had heard to his superiors. The following week they called me from FIFA to talk to me and they wanted to know if we could fit in with the ideas they had. We put everything in common, the projects I did and the ones they have planned.

– What does it mean for a 29-year-old to work for the highest organization in world football? Do you feel pressure for it?

Yes, I feel it, but it is a pressure that I think I will know how to channel. I am very happy with what I have achieved because I never dreamed of having something like that. I feel very responsible because there are three projects that I lead representing my country in them, which is a very big thing for me, but I believe that I am prepared and I am not afraid to face it. I have the responsibility, but it is not a responsibility that slows down, it is a responsibility that encourages me

– Will you work from Spain or will you move to Qatar?

I am going to propose two projects: one that is to be able to make sure that refugees who are fleeing a war can go through the process of recruiting talent, see what skills and capacities they have and that they can come to Europe to enjoy different possibilities. This would be better in normal times. Go to Turkey in this case and meet the people, but what I think I'm going to do is have a person from this country inform me, pass me videos and do everything they can to be as close as possible to them. because, in principle, I'm only going to travel to Qatar.

– Will you maintain your link with FIFA after 2022?

It will depend on everything. There is nothing closed. It has been a year to see how it goes on our part and yours. If all goes well, I will renew and we will carry out other projects, but if not it will be over. There are options to renew.

– What can we expect from the Qatar 2022 World Cup? In view of the stadiums, are we facing the World Cup with the best facilities in history?

I would like to compare it with that of South Africa because in the end there is something similar, but it was a World Cup that created stadiums to leave them abandoned later. It is clear that everything will have to be very different there because of the climate issue. In Qatar when they do things, they do them well without sparing expense. Without a doubt it will be something spectacular. I really want to see the presentations that they are going to do because I am convinced that they will be incredible. It's going to be brutal for the viewer and for me, luckily I'm going to be there.

– The 2022 World Cup will have a removable stadium, the Ras Abu Abuod, an innovation in the world of football. What would you highlight about the stadiums?

What must be highlighted is the capacity they have. We are talking about stadiums that are not excessively large, which I think is very nice. If the COVID situation changes, it will be very good because I think the footballer will feel like he is with the English football model. The stadiums are big but you feel the breath of the people. There are some stadiums that have a running track and that takes you away as an athlete from what the stands are. When I was in the Chelsea field, the fans took you on the cons. The closer people are to the grass I think the better and in some stadiums with the athletics track that can be lost.

– How are you going to beat the heat (despite playing from November 21 to December 18)?

They are desert climates. We will have to play a lot with the issue of the time and the installation itself. I want to think that they are going to invest a lot in air conditioning issues in case they are necessary. Also the water breaks that they are going to do. It's really going to be a hot World Cup, but I remember the one in Brazil that was terrible with the humidity. The players are going to have a hard time. I hope they have time to adapt. It is a World Cup with a very big challenge for everyone for the leagues and for the Federation itself.

– Will the players have a better performance since it is not at the end of the season?

It will depend a lot on mental performance because physical and psychological fatigue has dragged on throughout the season. They are going to start an atypical season and something else will not, but athletes are routine and have customs to fit in. It is going to be a challenge.

– Although it is impossible to predict the situation with the coronavirus for the dates of the World Cup, can the presence of the public be expected?

I think so. In the end they will. I want to think that starting in April the issue of the coronavirus will get better and that will affect us all well because we can return to the normality that we had.

– You have the IQ Scouting application. How do you recruit talent?

The methodology was created five years ago with two classmates from Talavera de la Reina. It was with Aarón Jiménez, who cooperates with the CSD, and Alejandro Prieto, who is a professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. What we realized is that the talent recruitment processes were not adequate, speaking of the human being as such.

We study the context of the athlete: parents, coaches, teachers and colleagues. We do it quarterly. Once we have the information, we prepare a report on how the boy is doing and issue one to the father, teacher and people around him to inform him of his status, but without revealing the true information because in the end we realized what to say to a person who has talent contaminates him. You have to take it with great caution. When we repeat the process on a quarterly basis, between quarter and quarter we give you specific daily recommendations to improve the skills and competencies that you have to enhance. We study talent as the process and the ability to adapt and permeability to something.

– A child can be contaminated by knowing that he has talent.

We found out at Albacete, a club with which we were working for four years and who bet on different things. We started through Alejandro Prieto developing the idea. We saw that there was a boy who, according to the criteria we had, promised a lot and we told the coaches. We began to see that the instructions that the technician gave him changed and he spoke to him in a different way, as if he knew he was good. In the end the boy settled down. It is wrong to make someone see something different in their behavior overnight. Then we found out about Álvaro, now Atlético de Madrid B center-back, who was at Albacete and worked with us. We never gave the details of this boy. When we started to keep quiet, the club asked us for information and we gave it annually with the actual reports, but in the process of the first quarter of the season we didn't say anything. Our methodology is the only one that is scientifically validated and after spending two years all the controls we can guarantee that it does work.

– Between what ages does the study of footballers?

From 8 to 12 is where we have the most incidence. After 12 to 15 and now what we have enabled is from 5 to 8. Also from 15 to 19 we work on it but the incidence has to be direct. In clubs like Barça or Chelsea you do know exactly the model of the game that requires that position or even how it can be adapted to others. For me, the positional issue is dead. A winger can be a forward, winger or midfielder depending on the phase of the match. Actually, where we have the most focus with the application is from 8 to 12 years old and from 12 to 15 years old.

– There are examples of children who stand out in soccer tournaments with 10 and 12 years, however when they reach 20 years they have not stood out. Why is that?

The example that I put with our methodology is that of the Obamas. When they are at that time when they are so good, you have to look at why they are good. Sergi Roberto and Manu Trigueros exemplify the ideal development prototype from what has been to what it ended up being. There are players who when they were little were not the cracks, but they were the ones who helped the good ones to be. They were in the background. We are not going to see Messi. We are not going to that, but the players who are lost is because they are very superior in something and the environment is what makes them believe that they are already very good. Imagine a family that comes to the team and the coach and the club tell them that they are going to arrive, they start calling them representatives, clothing brands … The child no longer wants to learn more and says that at 9 years old he is terrific. However, there is another working behind you so that you are good and since he is in the background and they are not contaminating him, he is in the end the one who has more options. There are very few cases of Brunete that have arrived. It is not the majority.

-Which clubs have you worked with?

I started in the women's Orzán with Manu Sánchez, current coach of Deportivo Abanca. Then I signed for a year for Victoria (from Coruña) and for Montañeros where I collaborated with the goalkeeping coach of Second B. Then I signed for Arteixo and then I started traveling. I went through the MARCEL Foundation, through Nike for the academies they have in China when soccer became mandatory and they wanted to establish a sports curriculum with which people from different parts of the world collaborate hand in hand with Manchester United. In China I was in Shanghai Shenxin and Beijing Goan cooperating with the methodology for the development and appraisal of talent. Once there I went to New York and was at the New York Red Bull for four months and at the same time at Stevens University, a university for gifted people.

Later, Barça hired me to work with them through the Academy. Most of the projects in which I was collaborating were with the Barça Academy and with Barça with the methodology and another communication project that did not come to fruition. I also worked with Chelsea and Blackburn Roberts with this methodological process. We were contacted by football acquaintances after the sanction for which they could not make signings and wanted to try different things to know their quarry. With the Blackburn Roberts he also offered us the possibility to test the method. Then I was with the Federation of Finland, but the COVID made me unable to travel and I returned to A Coruña to start the IQ Scouting application. Before the third wave, I went back to training Arteixo and then the call came from FIFA.

– Which athletes have surprised you the most?

I can give three examples. Pape Cheikh, who has played for Celta and is now in France, worked with us at Montañeros. Álvaro Ratón, Zaragoza goalkeeper and Jonathan Rubio, striker for the Honduran national team, who currently plays for Chaves, a team in the Portuguese Second Division. These players have totally different contexts. Álvaro, when he started working with me, they had fired him from Depor and told him that he was not worth it, that they were not going to bet on him and in the end he is the only one who has achieved professionalism.

– What talent has caught your attention within the Barça Academy and La Masía?

Inside the farmhouse there are spectacular talents. There is a goalkeeper currently in the youngest who promises a lot because he also fulfills everything and has been fulfilling it since juniors, an area that we do not usually study, but they asked me personally because he was a boy who was worth it. I went to Japan in the preseason with the first team and there I stopped working with them. Up to that point that boy was spectacular. Already as a goalkeeper he is good, but outside how he develops the mental capacities that he has is tremendous and is in the youngest. It is the pearl of the quarry that is quite quiet. Julian Araujo, a central defender from the Los Angeles Galaxy who was at the Barça Academy in Arizona, came out of the Barça Academy and worked with the form of the methodology we had. Thank you all, he signed for the Galaxy as the youngest player in MLS for the amount of money they paid for him.

– How is education in La Masia?

When they say that it is ‘Month that a club’ it is because they make you feel part of them. They have a different treatment. I have not seen in any team the type of approach and how they make you be part of the family. Something differential apart from everything they work on, which is spectacular. La Masía works very well. It is more because of the context that athletes are lost.

– Did any talent come out when you worked at Chelsea?

I cannot name names, but there is a current midfielder in Chelsea from the quarry that if you look at the time it can fit you. They ignored us and gave him up and now he is in the first team (Clues indicate that it is Mason Mount).

– In Europe there are great football quarries, but how do you discover players in Africa, Asia or Oceania?

I've been to Japan recently and I'm going in April. The process changes depending on the connections. In Spain, if you say many well-spoken corrections to a child, the child takes it to mean that you are paying attention to him and he likes it. In China and Japan it is the opposite. If you advocate for a child, they think you are insulting him or that you are calling him bad. There is the difference that we have between cultures.

We attract talent by knowing the culture, understanding the capacity for effort and adaptation to situations. In Spain we can live it with Canarian players who have a hard time leaving the islands. In Japan with the Barça Academy, more or less the processes have to be different in terms of understanding because my process of attracting talent is not based on what you do only on the field. It is based on how your life is. I always put the example of Adriano, forward of the Brazilian team and Inter, he had a family situation that did not know how to fit in and got lost. That is what we want to know, prepare and avoid although then there are blows that life can give you the same. It's like trying to keep your head as low as possible to all the things that can happen to you.

– How important is psychological work in the world of sports?

The clubs are giving it importance but they should give it even more because psychological work is what equalizes or does better. A few weeks ago Finland won a friendly against France. The psychological component is very important. In the end it is what makes the difference today. At a physical, technical and tactical level, they are all more and more even. Before there were many differences and now there are none. The ability and training that athletes must have, especially young people, has to be more important than it is. I am not saying that it is not being given importance, but I am saying that it should be more.

– How can you combat these problems?

When situations like depression happen, if they are immediately spontaneous, it is a psychological process with their treatment. It is a huge impact. It depends on how it was if it is a death that has been announced, which is a process that the athlete undergoes, but in the case of important deaths, individualized psychological treatment is provided for as long as it takes and preventing them from falling into a depression that is at least final which leads to isolation.

Depression is caused by sadness and sadness is derived from the situation. In the end it is to understand that it is a catastrophe given the time and to try that when the wound heals, that it never heals, but when it is more or less well to start doing things that the athlete is hooked. The case of soccer players who are parents can also be a cause of stress, anxiety and depression, however I go more to treatment and to know why in countries so developed at an educational level they have this type of behavior

– At what point is gender inequality in football?

There is still a huge difference and whoever says no does not want to see it. I want to think that the girls of today are becoming the mirror of future generations and that this will make things equal. For example: in the United States everything was equal because the government in 1971 decided to establish economic equality in terms of salaries in the universities. Men and women are going to get the same and that's when American football began to be promoted and grown, especially women's football.

Within sports there is a lot of inequality. It is true that being a woman is a burden and it shouldn't be, but because you are a woman, which is something that you don't even choose, you already have a sentence and you can't develop what you want. Today there are more girls who want to look like Alexia Putellas or Teresa Abelleira. Little by little they become that reflection that they did not have. They saw Vero Boquete, who is also spectacular, but it is not the same to have one as many and also to see that a first step is being taken, but of course it is the first step. There's still a lot.