SPECIAL “They must have done something very fat to Messi”

At the age of 85 on May 2, this Galician from La Coruña, made a man in Barcelona and catapulted into a world football star with the Inter and Spanish National Team shirt, sees the entire football scene from Milan and with his sarcasm and easy conversation can answer everything that is asked. Let's check it out.

Have you gotten used to football without an audience in stadiums?

No, I don't get used to it. I do not think football for more games I watch. They don't have the same rhythm. I'm used to the plays being accompanied by noise, screams, whistles, applause, “uuuuysss” and it all seems very surreal to me. It looks like those Playstation games that kids play now, but bigger.

It is almost opera, theater …

Yes Yes. All quiet. It's weird, it's like you don't really play. Players have to be made even weirder than us. They are closer and will miss him more.

How did the news of the summer follow from Milan, Messi's reversal?

I'd say it was almost the news of the year or the century. From a distance I can be wrong, but I know that club and I think there must be something that has bothered Messi a lot to do what he did. I don't know, something fat must have been. Maybe they promised something and didn't deliver. He took an important step even knowing that he was not going to have the exit that he would have wanted. That burofax thing I still don't know what it is. In my time we would have sent a letter with a 50 cent stamp saying we wanted to go… Messi has been at the club all his life. He has won it all. He has everything going for him, the press, the public, his colleagues. Something serious had to be. He or the interested parties would have to explain it to know if he was right or not. It is shocking that the thing ended like this.

Do you think you are going free at the end of the season?

You have to wait two or three months to see what happens between him and the club. After how you wanted to leave, you can expect everything. I'd bet he's going to go. If he had made that decision, it is difficult for him to stay. There are elections and things would have to change radically. Of course for me it would be a shame if he left. He would have to play until he wanted to and then stay at the club.

You also had to leave Barça …

My case was different. Mine was for the public who did not accept that it was the Kubala relay. He took it with me and the situation heated up. The smartest was Helenio Herrera who knew what was going on and when he left for Inter he took me with him. In mine there was also an economic contingency, Barcelona had no money. I was building a new stadium, the permits for the sale of Les Corts did not arrive and my sale solved the problems, or a good part. They paid 25 million pesetas for me at that time … They made a platform with it.

Something strange happens in the Barcelona club with the stars. Maradona, Ronaldo, Schuster, Ronaldinho… He has something of a crusher.

Yes, it's as if they don't want the stories to end well. What happened to those players is strange. They do not last long. They jump fast. Yes there are many cases. There must be a reason.

Every year around this time in Spain we all remember Luis Suárez because the Ballon d'Or is awarded and since 1960 you continue to be the only one born in Spain to have it …

And this year as they are not going to give it to anyone, because no one will remember me. Yes. They call me a little and without the Ballon d'Or in between, less will they call me … Ha, Ha, Ha. Give it to me honorably…. Now seriously, after everything that has happened and is happening, nothing happens because one year they do not deliver it. They have done it because all the players have not had the same conditions. Some stopped due to the pandemic, others did not. Some played earlier, others later.

It would have been the first trophy Messi or Cristiano had not won in recent years with the exception of Modric in 2018.

It may not have been for either of them. It would have been the most normal thing. Messi did not win neither the League nor the Champions League and on top of that they scored eight against Barça. Cristiano won the scudettto but that in Italy is not news. Juve has eight in a row. In Europe he did nothing either. This year for what they have always done they did nothing.

Who would you have given it to?

To Lewandowski. For everything he has done this year and for what he has been doing in recent years. He's not just a scorer, he knows how to play. In addition, winning the European Cup always influences this award. At least in my time when it suited them. They didn't give me a second that I deserved in 64. Inter won the European Cup, the League and the Intercontinental, and I also won the European Championship with Spain. And they gave me the money. In '65, when we also won almost everything, I was a bronze… never better said.

After Messi and Cristiano who appears on his horizon …

Mbappe. It still lacks a bit, but I like it. He has speed, he dribbles, he is physically strong … If anything, to be a forward, he should score more goals. If the “bogeyman” doesn't fail him, as I say, he has to be their heir. It gives him to be the Ballon d'Or. Besides playing for PSG he has an advantage, those who give the trophy are French. You have to keep climbing steps.

Real Madrid wants it yes or yes.

I know that Florentino has liked it for a long time and it is haunting him.

And Neymar.

I dont know. It doesn't quite convince me. He does wonderful things and in other games he is inhibited. He arrived in Paris saying here I am and his performance has been irregular. He is injured a lot, it is also true that they hit him well because of the way he plays, but his choice of life also influences. I know a lot of very good players who don't reach the top for their head.

You comment on Barcelona's games for the SER and watch all the league games, you are aware that talent is slipping away from us.

It's what I have left, watch games. I have not stopped watching the Spanish championship since it can be seen in Italy. What happens to us is that before, other leagues did not go to Spain to look for the great players, they were looking for something else, but not the greats. And now with the Arabs, the Russians, the Chinese … well, the Spanish clubs, neither Madrid, nor Barcelona, ​​can pay what they do. I have always said that there are footballers who only think about money. I do not understand that one who already earns 10 or 12 million changes clubs because in another place they give him 14 or 15. What is going to change his life for two or three million more? Where are they going to go that are better than Real Madrid or Barcelona, ​​or Juventus or Inter, which is another example? That's what's happening. I understand the footballer who is looking for a club improvement to aspire to win titles, but not only for money.

Everything changes so much that the National Team now plays more players outside of Spain than in the League itself.

I already saw it. Now the Spanish come out like flies. We, Peiró, Del Sol, Santisteban, I… were the first. Globalization, they say. This massive march shows that Spanish football continues to have a lot of quality. We have always had great players, since I can remember and I am 85 years old. In Spain there are few turnboots.

And about Ansu Fati, what do you tell me?

Which has great conditions. He is cold, he sees an easy door, he has technique, speed. He has everything, now he just needs to not let the coconut go. Possibilities have all.

And by Adama Traoré.

It has overflow and speed. The 'brunettes' have always had a lot of muscle and attract attention, but you have to know how to use it.

In a couple of weeks his soul Inter will face Real Madrid in the Champions League.

Well, in this Inter of the Chinese I don't know anyone, except the employees who have been there for many years. I don't know if some forget that not only did I play for Inter for nine years and I won two European Cups than before, but then I worked for more than 15 years with Massimo, the son of Angelo Moratti who signed me as a player. These gentlemen buy the club not to make it great again, but to do business. They are not interested in anything else. They have even changed the name of the Sports City and now they call it Suning and the name of Moratti is hardly seen. Those who were before the Chinese have already done business and they want the same. They don't have a football culture, they don't know football, only money.

He no longer goes to San Siro …

Almost nothing, between the fact that I am a journalist for Spain and the schedules coincide and that I do not have a pass, neither I nor everyone from my time goes a lot. Man if one day I want to go, I can call on the phone and ask for a ticket. I guess they would give it to me. I would already know who to call. It is another Inter, not the ‘great Inter’, as ours was known

But you watch every game, don't fool me.

Yes, yes, of course. It's my squadra. With Conte this year I see it a little better. The same thing can be done in the championship because although we are starting, Juve is not as strong as other years, I think. Madrid is a lot of Madrid, anyway, even if it doesn't score many goals.

Where is the danger of Inter?

They have to be careful with the two forwards, Lukaku and Lautaro score goals with relative ease, but they lack a player of a certain hierarchy in the center of the field who leads the game. A good one who really commands because he plays well. They wanted to sign Kanté, the Frenchman, who is a “run-see-and-tell him.” Do you get me? He won a World Cup, but doing “run-see-and-tell”. They have not signed him because Chelsea did not want to. Here they wanted to pay a millionaire. That is why I put Eriksen. The Dane is a good player, although I think the kid lacks a bit of character. With 15 or 20 minutes you can do nothing. You have to give it matches.

I guess you don't like Conte very much …

What I don't like is that the coaches send more than milk. They do not stop asking. Hundreds of millions of lire are spent, sorry for a few euros less … Ha ha ha. They believe that they win the championships. And those who win them are the players. Those who change the games are not the coaches with the changes, they are the good players with their actions. The footballers are the ones below.

You were also a coach and even a coach.

And I was thinking the same as now. It's like those who spend the game screaming. Why will they scream if they don't listen to you. If anything, the ones you have in your band. Man, now you hear more, of course. But I speak of the essence. What you have to have is footballers with personality. Conte thinks he is the boss of the club. Ask, ask, ask .. And they sign contracts of two and three years and have three or four assistants, the second, the physical, the doorman, the one who signs the minutes … Then, if things go wrong, you have to throw him out and you have to pay 40 million between one thing and another. For that, what they have to do is buy the clubs and then do what they want. He doesn't stop complaining and if you don't bring him what he wants, he says he's going … If what he did was almost to throw him out.