“There is a future coach in Torres, for Atleti, La Roja…”

Armando de la Morena (Madrid, 1977) is the coach of Atlético who led a Juvenile rojiblanco team to the quarterfinals of the Youth League for the first time. It was in 2014-15, in the second edition of the youth Champions. That of Fernando Torres and Ricardo Ortega reached them with a victory in Valdebebas against Madrid on Wednesday. No one like the one who has already been there, to analyze the pace, the pass, the kids, the adult ‘Child’, the coach.

-Did you see the game of Atlético Juvenil against Madrid in the round of 16 of the Youth League?

-Yes, I was there in Valdebebas, watching it live.

-And how do you see this Juvenile?

-Well, look what I see because, besides, I’ve been following him a lot, since the beginning of the season. In fact, I went to see the first game of the league, which they played against Porto, and then I have also seen quite a few games of the Liga de División de Honor. Also against Madrid, also there in Valdebebas, who won 0-1. I’ve seen quite a few games. And, above all, what I have seen has been a fairly large evolution both of the team, at the block level, of automatisms that the team has acquired, as well as at the level of individual growth of the players, which is the main objective of a coach of quarry, as Fernando is now, so the evolution is being phenomenal. At least that’s the feeling from the outside. The players have grown a lot and there are some who point quite well to the future of Atlético.

-It has many names. Ibra, Carlos Martin, Barrios, Salim…

-The truth is that there are a few footballers there, a range of six, seven footballers, who are standing out a lot and who in the future can give us a lot of joy.

-It is said by someone who knows, who has worked a lot with the quarries. You have worked a lot with children and I don’t know if the talents, those who arrive, are already seen in this category. You trained Lucas, Theo…

-And a certain Koke, and a certain Morata, a certain Rodri…

-Of course, of course.

-17 years at Atlético de Madrid.

-And do you see them? When do you have a Koke, a Rodri in front of you?

-Yes Yes. You can already see that they have conditions, qualities, a focused head, that this is also important. That the people around them are in good company in most cases of these guys who finally arrive. But it is also true that there are others who fall by the wayside. That if injuries, that if ever bad company, that if the environment that surrounds them. And, in the end, boys who could have also arrived, at this age, who are there very close to reaching the finish line, in the end you see that they do not arrive. And you see them playing in the Third Division, some who quit football after two years… But it is true that Koke, Morata, Rodri, De Gea, who I also had him, among the first ones I had, are boys that you see who they have something special. Lucas, for example. That they are players who, if they don’t go wrong, if they go the right way, if everything that is surrounded by football respects them, then they can get there because they have conditions.

– And this Youth?

-Well, what I see in this Juvenile is that. That there are several boys who, if all goes well, may reach the elite.

-In the first team, the last one to settle down was Lucas, a long time ago…

-Of course, of course. Yes Yes.

-How do you see, for example, Javi Serrano? He did not play with Juvenil against Madrid but he is a footballer who counts, that he is in Cholo’s calls, that he has debuted…

-Yes, he is also a boy who has spent his whole life at Atlético. He is a boy who entered from a very young age. I was still there because I left the club in 2017 and he was already there with the Benjamines, Alevines…, and people were already talking about him. “Joe, this boy look how small he is but how good…”. And look how he goes up. I see him as a boy with many conditions, he has a lot of work. He has everything to get there. Then he is there on the brink, now he is already playing for the first team, to see how he assimilates it, the environment… Now he has a little left. Because it is true that there have also been other boys, other years, that he has also been there playing the first team and counting and in the end they have not finished curdling.

-And how do you see Fernando Torres as a coach? The truth is that, when he retired, he always said: “If I go back to Atleti, let it be to add.” But it was thought that he would do it from a managerial position, not from the benches. And he has arrived there and is already making history.

-A coach like Fernando, knowing his career a bit, as a player and always with the respect that he has acted, has the conditions to be a great coach. Well that. Because of how he expresses himself, the serenity that he has, the calm. I know it from the players too, who tell me wonders about him, how he transmits, how he gives them the concepts. So what I see in him is that, like the players, if everything is going the right way, then we have a future coach for Spanish football and for Atlético and hopefully for the National Team as well. For what he wants.

– Barrios said yesterday, after the victory, that when Fernando said something to them, they got it. Because of who he is, because of how he arrives. The truth is that, since he debuted in the first team, very young, he has always transmitted athletic feeling like few others.

Sure, that’s how I see it. He spoke very well to you when he was still a kid, 17, 18 years old, and he took the reins, behind the back, of Atlético at that time, and he is always respectable both on and off the field, for his manners and behavior. After all, a coach has to be that. An example both outside and inside the field. And he meets those conditions.

-But it is striking, that a year ago Fernando began on the benches… of practices… And you yourself point it out, that your team, in these months, the kids in your charge, have made an evolutionary leap that is palpable. That is to say, there is a coach’s hand there.

-Yes Yes. That’s why, that’s why. The main thing has been that, the evolution that the team has had since he took it at the beginning, that, well, I saw it, yes, that it had little details but the players do not stand out at the moment, Fernando is going to have a lot of work … And In the end, that work is paying off. And things are going very well and above all it can be seen that there is a direct hand from the coach in that sense and that is why he has evolved.

-Fernando’s Youth team is the second to qualify for the quarterfinals. The first was his. In 2014-15, in the second edition of the Youth League.

-Yes, it had been two years and, well, the truth is that we had an exceptional group stage, we won all the games.

-Who did they play against?

-Olympiacos, Juventus and Malmo. And against Juve, which was when we qualified, on the last matchday, we won 0-3 in Turin, playing very, very good football. I remember that Miguel Ángel Gil even came. You know that when we travel to play the Youth League we go with the first team, on the same plane. And he came to congratulate all the boys, who had been watching the match.

-Well, look, it’s important because Miguel Ángel never watches the games live, he gets so nervous.

-Yes, well, or was there. That’s what he came to tell us.

-The first team, I mean.

-Apparently, ours was watching it, on TV, I don’t know, but it was there. And he came to the back of the plane, where we were all the Youth team, and he came to congratulate us personally, that he had loved the team, that they had played very well… The truth is that they are beautiful memories. There to Carlos Aguilera, then the sports director, he was there with us and very nice. In the round of 16 we played against Arsenal, which would be like the game Fernando played yesterday. And we played at Cerro del Espino and there we won 1-0, with a goal from Amath, who is now at Mallorca.

– And then in quarters?

-We played against Chelsea which, to be honest, was a tremendous team, which, in fact, of that eleven, eight are professional footballers from the first English team (Looftus, Brown, Christensen, Solanke…).

– Is there any footballer who is right now in the elite and who faced that Youth of yours?

-Yes Yes. We had Lucas, Theo…, who couldn’t play against Chelsea because they sent him off against Arsenal and that upset us a little defensively, that weighed on us in the quarter-final. And more in London that the entire Chelsea first team squad went there. They got almost 10,000 people for the game. There the truth is that it was a bit of a trap, the truth (laughs).

-How were they?

-We lost 2-0.

-What other kids did you have on your team? In addition to Lucas, Theo…

-Well, it was a generation that was Tete Morente, from Elche, and Amath. They are the four players who are in the First Division in Spain and two in the Second Division and we hope that some more can arrive. Then there are several boys who are outside of Spain who are also in the First Division. And that is the most important thing when you train in the academy and what makes me most proud as a coach, that, in 17 years, I have been lucky enough to train more than 50 players who are in the First and Second Divisions and some of them are among the best in the world. .

-What does this youth Champions mean for the quarries, the kids…?

-Especially as an experience for players who are just in the previous step to reach the first team, it is an ideal format for them. It’s the closest thing to being professional. They travel with the first team, hotels, concentrates, television, journalists… It is the Champions League in its category and in that aspect it has a lot of repercussion. For them it is just the previous step.

-And you, after 17 years at Atlético, decided in 2017 to start a new adventure. What is he doing now?

-Until a week ago I was with Germán (Burgos). In 2017, when I was at Atlético, I received an offer from the Balearic Islands, in Mallorca, in Segunda B, which was a team with a lot of projection, with the intention of being able to go up to Segunda at some point, that’s why we went. But there was a change of staff and in the end we couldn’t continue. And just when we were out there, Roberto Fresnedoso and Carlos Aguilera called me about a project that there was at Guanzu. It was here in Madrid, I came from Mallorca and I stayed for three years. And Morientes was also there. And combining it a little bit also with the work with Germán.

How was it starting to work with him?

One day he called me. I knew him from the Atlético stage although we didn’t have much of a relationship but I knew him because, you know, many times the youth go up to train with the first team. And he called me and told me about the project he had, that he was going to become head coach and that and I interviewed him a few times. He told me that, just as he was talking to me, he was talking to other coaches and then he would decide who he would stay with. And in the third, fourth interview that we had, he told me if I wanted to go with him as a second and that’s how I’ve been, until last week with him.

-He was with him in Argentina.

-Yes, in Newells. It was a very good sporting experience. It is true that the club was a bit shaken, due to the issue of the elections, the pandemic and at the end of May, Germán and I also decided not to continue. And so we have been waiting until last week when Germán decided to go to Greece. And I, yes it is true, that weighing it up, I decided to return to Madrid and separate our paths a little that, perhaps, in the future will meet again.

-Would you like to train in Spain?

-Yes, train here. If it can be in a coaching staff like I was with Germán to be able to be in First, Second, or become head coach again in an interesting project, it is a bit the main idea that I have in my head

-And return to Atlético?

I’ll be back sometime, for sure. It’s what I identify with. What I am, I owe everything to Atleti.

-Will this Juvenile be able to overcome where his came from?

-If only. It may be in the final, in fact. Conditions, players, coach, there are.