Raúl is the dolphin

Raúl burns stages at full speed in his training as a coach and does it faster than Zidane himself, the model in which Real Madrid is set for the future of the eternal Seven. This past Sunday Raúl He scored the same, to put Castilla in the promotion phase to Second, a race in which another medal could be hung. Madrid has not had its affiliate in the silver category of Spanish football for … seven years. Even in that Kabbalistic comes out.

Raúl is at the disposal of culminate in less than a year two dreams of the entity of Chamartín. Last August he made the European Youth Under-19 champion by winning the first UEFA Youth League for the club and now he can guide this golden Generation Z back to professional football. He's in it. He has added 17 of the last 21 points at stake for the subsidiary and enters the next and decisive phase (the points of the previous phase are dragged) that starts on April 4 well positioned. Promotion is a palpable possibility.

Results that make visible a job that has been showing traces of being typical of a coach in crescendo. “He is very daring tactically, more than Zidane when he was in Castilla”, they comment from inside Factory. Zizou pulled more than 4-2-3-1 before having to take over 4-3-3 for the BBC's sake. A corset that she only got rid of in the Cardiff and Kiev finals. Raúl is closer to a 4-1-4-1 with Blanco as the epicenter of everything. But It has also joined the fashion, in which Zidane participates, of using three centrals. All together with his right hand on the board and planning, Alberto Garrido, who from the background exercises an outstanding job.

Winner and with a very accentuated personality

For Raúl, his way of expressing himself on the bench is almost a translation of what he did with the Madrid bracelet. In Valdebebas they are known the occasional touch of attention to some youth squad that has seen with attitudes of enlarged and a few weeks ago he read the primer in the locker room to several players in Navalcarnero for addressing the stands with unsportsmanlike gestures. A personality praised in private and also in public. From former colleagues in Factory, like Dani Poyatos, to one of his captains, Chust: “Raúl has Madrid in his DNA”.

Share Raúl genome with some of the most successful recent Madrid coaches (Zizou, Ancelotti, Del Bosque …). Knowing that, above all, they have to be club men. In a period in which Zidane had to watch Castilla to complete the first team bench in the face of so much injury, Raúl managed to keep winning by resorting to whatever was necessary. Drawing changes and youth calls included in the Under-19 Carrillo and Living room. He even temporarily lost Hugo Duro, the top scorer from Castilla (eight goals in these 18 days played in the first phase): rescued Latasa from inactivity and plugged him in fast. He went from substitute to score four goals in five games, the last of them in minute 2 of the miniderbi against Atlético B two weeks ago. He is also not having a problem in alternating two goalkeepers (Toni Fuidias and Luis López) almost week to week without the team noticing.. Seven knows how to make a virtue out of necessity and makes good use of time. He only had a month to come down from Castilla and prepare the Juvenil on an interim basis to win that Youth League. In the middle of August.

Nothing escapes their eyes

He is extremely meticulous. The boys who are at his command and even those who are not, know this, but who notice his special presence by the runners of the sports city. “I had never spoken to him and one day when we passed through Valdebebas he stopped me to show me something on his cell phone, they were actions from my last game, I didn't even believe it”. This anecdote was told a few weeks ago in AS by former white Pablo Rodríguez, winner with Raúl of the Youth League and today in Lecce of the Italian series B.

Raúl knows everything that cooks in Factory white, an imprint left on the house by Del Bosque himself, who when he was the head of the quarry had even the keys to the old sports city to be the first to arrive and the last to leave. Raúl, whom Madrid has designed a roadmap to repeat his success with Zidane, has mirrors to look into.