The Ferrer family had a new member on New Year’s Day in 1970 when Joan Francesc was born in Barcelona. At the age of six he moved to Vilasar de Mar and at 31 he hung up his boots in the representative team of this Barcelona town to take charge of the senior team, where he began to carve out his prolific career as a coach, amid the smell of bacon and beer from the Third Division fields (he had previously taken his first steps with children and adolescents). Not in vain, he has traveled the Spanish geography to work on what he is passionate about: Hospitalet, Sabadell, Espanyol B, Ibiza, Benidorm, Girona, Valladolid, Levante, Sporting, Huesca, Espanyol, Betis and now Almería.
“The four corners of Spain are somewhat unknown, but super beautiful”, he comments. In one of them he has found happiness, developing a team with the author’s name. Turki Al-Sheikh recruited him at the end of last April with the goal of achieving promotion. With a contract until 2023, the real objective was to start building the bases of ‘La Rubineta’, as this Almería is known colloquially, it has caught cruising speed towards the First Division, the same path that it traveled three years ago with Huesca. From the recently opened benches of the Stadium of the Mediterranean Games (curiously he is a lover of the sea and fishing) he attends AS. “When we go by plane it is amazing to see from the sky how the field has been”, points out before entering the matter.
– He looks comfortable in the press rooms, without shying away from questions.
I like to talk about football. Even that you ask me if you have doubts about some matters because it makes it easier for the coach to explain why he has made a decision or a certain match or alignment. It helps that you can write with more foundation if you agree more or less with the decisions that are made, more than if you do it without asking. I am not a trainer to answer topics, it is true, sometimes I even answer too much. I want to satisfy the person asking the question.
– Have you ever had a problem in a dressing room or club for answering too much?
No never. But I never explain anything that I haven’t talked to the footballers before. For this it is not new to read something that I have said because we have previously commented on it in the dressing room. I have not had any problems; In fact, when I speak I am not criticizing excessively or disrespecting
– He says he likes to talk about football. With whom would I spend hours and hours talking about football?
I tell you that I like it in quotes. There also comes a time when I want to disconnect. I would talk to anyone who is respectful of the coaches’ jobs. We have a very tough ballot, we are continually questioned. I appreciate talking to people who are not thinking about those things, but about the game, leading the teams or even the story. I really like the history of football, the experiences of another coach.
Carlos Barba (Diario AS)
– Is a coach a coach if he has not been expelled or dismissed?
I think it is a phrase from Camacho, whom I have great admiration for. It is true that it is a situation that when it occurs for the first time is very hard. You are on a team and you are notified of a termination … That is very, very hard. For me it was, above all, the first two. Then you say “this is going on” and you think ‘they are missing it’ because it is the way to protect yourself.
– You were not allowed to finish in Sabadell (2005), Espanyol B (2008), Ibiza (2008) and Betis (2020).
The first was in Sabadell. I think we had done the most difficult thing: a first round where the results did not come out, we were down with the lowest budget in the category and just when we turned the situation around, we had seven games without losing, in the first that we fell [1-0 ante Osasuna B] I was notified of the termination, in addition, after the sports director came down to congratulate the team for how well they had played that day. They are decisions that surprise you. But the hardest was the second, Espanyol B, because there it is true that I did not expect it. I thought we had done enough work to finish the season.
– The last one was special: the pandemic made him wait more than three months to compete again and then it barely lasted three games. How did you take it?
It was a very unusual year. The team was never in the positions that had been marked: fighting for European competitions. There were situations that made it difficult for us, some would be the fault of the coaching staff, why not deny it, but others were not our responsibility. The pity was not finishing the season, with a schedule that was already much more affordable. In fact, we stopped the day before playing against the bottom (Espanyol). But we have to accept it, in addition to having the utmost respect for Beticism and the people who gave us confidence and who later decided that the relationship had to end.
Carlos Barba (Diario AS)
– The last one was special: the pandemic made him wait more than three months to compete again and then it barely lasted three games. How did you take it?
I am very, very happy. And very happy to live in this city. You have a wonderful climate, as well as many beautiful places to visit. It is a place in Spain that I did not know. Maybe sometimes we have the corners a bit forgotten. There are many people who tell me “I don’t know Girona” and it is another wonderful place to go. If you go to the Galicia area, the same. Here everything is going very well, it is also true that we must be cautious and go little by little, since this is very long and it is said, because it is known, that things can go a bit twisted. But hopefully we will be able to finish this season successfully because the people here deserve it.
– Last season came as a fire extinguisher at the end of the course unlike the present. Is it more proud to have started the process?
I have always said the same thing: I am one of those who thinks that coaches should not be dismissed at the end of the season, in the middle or three quarters, except that it really is an irreversible situation of trust with the dressing room, rather than results. We believe that another will come and everything will be different. Unless the trust between the dressing room and the coaching staff is broken, the one who knows everything best is the coach who has started … I don’t like to join the teams in the middle of the season, in this case, one month from the end , but at that moment (we had rejected other possibilities) we decided to take it as starting the next course. We tried, we fought, the results in the league were even good, scoring 11 points out of 18. Those who lost were close to winning, except in Cartagena. But in the promotion we were very bad in the first game and there everything was destroyed. We were also calm because we had seen the players, the squad, what the team needed, how this club works … All of this helped us to start the next season.
– If an extraterrestrial now came to the Mediterranean, how would you describe Rubi’s Almería?
I would see the most important thing in football, which is the involvement of a group of footballers. I would see that from the first minute because it cannot be reproached that this team is not giving everything. Also an Almería that proposes, that tries to attack, that also tries to dominate the defensive aspects and that has very good footballers. That alien would enjoy.
– A preseason mantra was ‘work, work and more work on the defensive field’.
As all coaches do, we have to work on everything: defense, attack, set pieces … A thousand things. But we did put emphasis on the defensive aspect because we know that we have a lot of talent in attack and we do not want to robotize it in attack either. It was essential that they understand that they all had to work. And then have an order and organization at the tactical level. It has worked. Much remains, things can be twisted, but the team is recognizable.
– So much work in this regard has paid off: no team has conceded fewer goals than Almería, which has scored three clean sheets in a row.
Not today. We are a team that can score a goal, like any other team. There’s no doubt. But it is also true that it is not easy to score two goals. And I think that is very important because in the end a goal can be scored at any time in any game whether you are good or bad, but scoring two goals is not easy. That is the key to consistency in results: being a team that doesn’t fit in much.
– Going back to the preseason, he worked with footballers who are no longer there and he did not do it with others with whom he does now. When did ‘La Rubineta’ start to get greasy?
I think from day one. The first session began to work very hard. As you say, there were a series of situations that had to be resolved at the contractual level of footballers who are now gone, but a hundred percent work has been done with those who were already there from the beginning and who now continue. Then it was necessary to dedicate hours to these footballers who have arrived later so that they could catch up on everything that had been done. But this is part of the normal job of a coach and that is becoming more and more, for my way of seeing, unfortunately. All coaches prefer to have the squad finished at the beginning, but football has evolved and the squads change at the last minute if necessary.
– On Matchday 4, after losing to Amorebieta, he placed De la Hoz as a positional midfielder, overtaking Samu. Was it a turning point?
There have been many turning points, but it is clear that that move has worked very well. There are many possibilities to do things differently and with other profiles and they could also work. But what is undeniable is that today that balance that the two are giving to the team is being very important.
– Together with Fernando, Chumi, Portillo and Sadiq, form the backbone of this Almería.
10:18 As a coach, I don’t talk much about the backbone because in a very long season it can vary. In fact, note that Robertone and Ramazani were players who were also within what you can interpret as a column and then other players appear. The important thing is that whoever plays at their highest level plays because all the players in the squad have shown that they have the ability.
– It has transformed De la Hoz, Chumi, Fernando, Centelles, Ramazani … Is football a state of mind?
[Sonríe y habla con voz más firme] I am proud of what these footballers have achieved. Last year, when we arrived, they had not competed for two months, they hadn’t had a chance. Even we take time to give Fernando and César chances [De la Hoz] to join the team. People like the one you said show that coaches have a lot to say to get performance out of footballers. The players in a squad are usually all useful. Here I still need to step forward with a player, I need more time. The coach has to believe in his entire squad, not just a few.