“The laps of honor at the Camp Nou were half done”

The eternal white captain shares with Miguel Porlán Chendo the honor of being the player in the history of Real Madrid who has won the most Super Cups. Five. Four on the field of play, four against Barcelona and one for having been their team champion of the League and Cup and then the competition was not disputed when that circumstance occurred. It is precisely about that edition, the one from 1989, that Sanchís ironizes when he is reminded of the circumstance.

“I won that one, we won it, like El Cid, without having to fight on the battlefield. We didn’t have any problems. We didn’t suffer anything. It was the easiest title of my career, but it deserved as much or more than the others because we had been league and cup champions. I think that was the fourth double in the club’s history. and since then no more has been achieved. proof of its difficulty.

Manolo, when he enters the conversation, had not fallen into the detail that the other four finals had been won by Barça. “That means that our rivalry was carried and carried, as has just been verified in the last game, to all competitions. It is a confrontation that is never indifferent and you always want to win, regardless of the tournament that is played. For example, The two Cups I won were against Valladolid and Zaragoza”.

The white captain also keeps in his memory how on two occasions they tried to give the Camp Nou the lap of honor to celebrate the title and in neither of the two occasions they could do it. “The first of them, in 1988, coincided with Schuster’s arrival at Real Madrid and his first visit to the Camp Nou was in the Super Cup. The atmosphere was charged for two reasons. Because of Bernardo and because we won. We had to change of plans and go quickly to the locker room tunnel where the police were waiting to protect us. Then something similar happened to us again a few years later (1993) they also threw everything they could at us and we aborted the operation and went home”.

1990 Super Cup. Great goal from Aragon. The first leg at the Camp Nou, a week before (5-12) had ended in victory for Real Madrid with a goal from Míchel, but the most notable thing had been Stoichkov’s stomp on the match referee, Urizar Azpitarte, and the subsequent red card . The local coach, Johan Cruyff, was also expelled for protesting to the referee. The minimal income was offset by an early goal from Jon Andoni Goikoetxea, but the madridista reaction was immediate with goals from Butragueño (two) and Hugo Sánchez. But the goal of the night, which is part of the history of this competition, was scored by Santi Aragón from a meter beyond the central circle, 42 meters away from Zubizarreta’s three posts. It was the goal that Pelé had not scored in the World Cup in Mexico 70 when he wanted to surprise the Czech Viktor from a dozen meters behind.

Since then, 32 years, every time the Super Cup is played, the daring scorer is forced to rewind time and remember the play. There is always someone who calls you to remind you. “The worst of all was that I didn’t know anything about the last fifteen minutes of the match. Between the excitement of the goal and the fact that we won 4-1, there were moments of total cloud. Míchel, who was by my side when I finished off and was the first he saw that ball go in, he lifted me up on his shoulders and in the end, Zubizarreta shook my hand and congratulated me”.

The action was not the result of chance. With the 10 on his back, Aragón finished off with premeditation. “We knew that Cruyff’s Barça played with forward defense and Zubizarreta in many phases of the match, especially when his team attacked, they played a bit of free defense. Before that move, a teammate of mine had already tried it. I stole the ball from Eusebio in the central circle but already in his field. I staggered out of the play and while I balanced myself I saw, in the background, Zubi advanced. As he had a good long ball movement, I tried it. The game was for it and I saw it of course because I had it in my head. Míchel sang a goal when the ball was still in the air, until I saw it inside I didn’t say anything”.

2008 Super Cup. De la Red, revulsive and comeback with nine. The memory of the European Championship won at the Prater hovered over Spanish football when the new season opened with the Super Cup in August. The League champion, Real Madrid, beat the Cup champion, Valencia, 6-5 on aggregate. Two electrifying matches. Those of Emery gave first in Mestalla (3-2). Schuster’s men replied in a big way in the second leg (4-2). Rubén de la Red was the great protagonist of his team’s comeback.

From Dubai, where he gains experience as a coach, he airs one of his best memories as a footballer. “We came from the European Championship and for Casillas, Sergio and me it was the first games of the season with very few days of training. It was two great games. We had a bad time there, but the result was not as bad as it could have been. The second leg was strange. We were left with nine players. They sent Van der Vaart off at the end of the first half and then Van Nistelrooy midway through the second. Schuster made me come on for Guti in the 79th minute… and I scored in the 85th.”

Rubén enjoys telling how the goal was. Possibly one of the most beautiful and decisive of his career. “We won 2-1 but Valencia took advantage of their superiority to attack. A goal from them would have made the final very difficult for us. I recovered the ball in the center circle. I thought about it and shot with the right, with the inside instep, high, from 35 or 40 meters. I hit it well, the goalkeeper walked backwards and couldn’t get there. It was 3-1 that gave us peace of mind and assured us of extra time if they scored. It was the important goal, yes. Then Higuain scored the 4-1. He had also just left. We energized the team and won the title. It was a great final. We worked very well”.

That was the penultimate goal of his career. He still had the opportunity to score another against Racing de Santander in El Sardinero, on the third day of the League, before suffering in Irún, in a Cup match (10-30-2008) against Real Unión, the fainting that lasted 15 minutes without knowledge. Subsequent examinations confirmed his heart condition and his definitive retirement.