When Miguel Ángel Sánchez, Míchel, (Madrid, 48 years old) enters the offices of the Girona training center, the energy changes. It’s all positivity and energy. When he sits down to talk with EL PAÍS, he forgets about the watch. Of course, he takes a while to relax. But, when he does it, he brings out all his charisma on the eve of the match against Barcelona in Montilivi (tomorrow, at 6:30 p.m., DAZN). Because while Real Madrid is heading towards a new League title, in Spain there is a lot of talk about Girona. And from Michel. Two words that work as synonyms.
Ask. How do you feel about being fashionable?
Answer. It is a source of pride that it is said that Girona has an identity and a way of doing things. For me, the first thing that attracts you is what enters your eyes. If I watch a soccer game and I don’t feel passion… I understand soccer in the same way as when I was little: I want to have fun. That’s what I want for my teams, that’s when they represent me: when they go forward, when they are aggressive, when they look for the opponent’s goal. Because when that happens, when a team has soul, that’s when the fan is going to be infected. I had the same style and the same idea at Rayo and at Huesca and they fired me. But here, that passion is in the entire project.
Q. Isn’t talking about a project in football commonplace?
R. Immediacy in football exists, results rule. That’s how it is. But when I hear ‘I don’t care, what I want is for you to win’, I know that place is not for me. It’s not even if they give me the keys to the club. Here, in Girona, the commitment is to something built together. Obviously, the idea of the game is mine, but the club is betting on something different.
Q. He found his place in a Catalan and Catalan city that until his arrival spent a lot of football.
R. If I had arrived in this city and had put up a shield against Catalonia, against the language and against the independence movement, without giving me the opportunity to know the people or let them know me, I would have screwed up. I open doors and enter. I do it in a city, in a club and in a locker room. How can a relationship in life and in football get worse if you open up and build trust? For this reason, I have never believed in wear and tear between a coach and a player. It would have to be the other way around, right? If you face each other, speak honestly and there is mutual knowledge, how can a relationship get worse?
Q. He is a seducer.
R. It’s my way of working. It is not false modesty or humility, but I do not seek personal recognition. And everything has an explanation: I want young people to grow, not to talk about Míchel’s team playing well. When I go to training I think about how an individual player can improve. I want Aleix to play well, Viktor to play well, Miguel to play well. That makes everyone build something and, above all, everyone feels active in an idea. I work with people. I want them to earn more money, to be more important in the world of football.
Q. Who has inspired you?
R. Maradona.
Q. I developed.
R. Diego was football. There is a beautiful phrase by Valdano: “If Maradona is wearing a suit and they throw a ball full of mud at him, he controls it with his chest.” Do you understand that? That’s the passion we were talking about. Messi’s football is immortal, Maradona’s is earthly. With his mistakes, Maradona fascinated everyone. I want that for my teams, not what Diego did with his talent, because that is impossible, but what he transmitted: love for the game. Diego moved an entire country in the case of Argentina and a city of Naples; We have an entire province waiting for us to get into the Champions League. How can we be so stingy and say that only the result is worth it? The other day we won in Las Palmas and I was happy with the result, but thinking that it was not the Girona that we had built. I have told the players: ‘I want to finish the season and have people say: Madrid only lost one game, but the team that made people talk that season was Girona.’
We have an entire province waiting for us to get into the Champions League. How can we be so stingy and say that only the result is worth it?
Q. Do you want to be the Netherlands of ’74?
R. I want Girona’s way of playing to be remembered. That the team surprised and was able to compete with the greats. There are many teams that have achieved important things, but we have done it almost the entire season. Now we have two goals less than Madrid, but we have been, for many stretches of the season, the highest scoring team. That means something. A small team that goes forward and wins…
Q. Girona is fifth from the bottom in budget and second in the table. How do you explain it?
R. In Vallecas we are very vindictive, we have always been the ugly duckling of Madrid and we are 10 minutes from the center. How do others who have more money have to earn? Because? I remember when we went out to party with my friends at the clubs downtown. They were all wearing Nikes and my father had bought me Nikens, with an ene at the end. They didn’t let us pass, but we came back. It’s a mental question. In football, the same. This week, I spoke to my players: ‘If Athletic loses against Getafe on Friday, are we not going to compete against Barça on Saturday because we are already going to be qualified for the Champions League? Or are we going to think: I don’t care about the fucking result and what I want is for people to talk about how well Girona plays? We have to go out and beat Barça and finish second.’ This is how I want a player to live, not to speculate on how many points we need to win the Champions League. That’s bullshit. You have to get up every day thinking about being better, about fighting, about having goals. History is yet to be written. Who knows if Savinho is not worth 100 dollars in three years or who knows if Aleix is not going to join a big team. I told the players: The difference between Fede Valverde, who plays 70 games a year and remains focused, and others who play 35 is not physical. Everyone is prepared. The difference is mental.
You have to get up every day thinking about being better, about fighting, about having goals. History is about to be written
Q. Isn’t it technical?
R. If we played the game we did against Barcelona in the first round, why can’t we repeat it?
Q. How does Barça arrive now?
R. At that time, they had just beaten Atlético in the League and qualified for the round of 16 of the Champions League. It wasn’t a bad Barça.
Q. Do you like this Barça?
R. If the DNA, which has been talked about so much, is to compare everything with Pep’s Barça, then that is impossible to match. He will always be behind. Barça is a team that plays well and has competed very well. For this Saturday, I have only asked the players to play with the opponent’s contact. I don’t want them to play against the Barça shirt. I want them to be able to be aggressive looking at their rivals in the face. If they smell Lewandowski’s cologne four meters from the ball they are not going to generate superiority. They are very good. You have to collide, you have to be close. And when that happens, enough space will be generated to touch the ball and to be able to move. Tomorrow we have a beautiful game, a soccer duel.
Q. Is it a duel that goes beyond football?
R. Compared to Barcelona and Espanyol, we are the smallest club in Catalonia. We can put ourselves in the spotlight of the whole world and have people say: ‘What a great game Girona played!’ If we beat Barça there will be families in which grandparents and parents, who historically had closer feelings towards Barcelona, will suffer from telling their grandchildren and children: ‘We beat your team. We are second and you are third.’ That would be shit.
Q. Has Girona put the Barça style crown in check?
R. For a moment in Catalonia there was a lot of talk about how Girona played. But we don’t want to compare ourselves with Barça.
Q. According to one of his players, his Girona has things from Guardiola’s City, but also from Klopp’s Liverpool.
R. I am in love with Klopp.
If the players smell Lewandowski’s cologne four meters from the ball, they will not generate superiority. They are very good
Q. How do Klopp and Guardiola coexist in the same head?
R. Pep is classical music and Klopp is Rock And Roll. That means that Pep minimizes his rival, prevents them from hurting him, while Klopp accepts that the rival can hurt him in exchange for going out to eat him. So, if you combine the two ideas, the passion that Liverpool generates and also prevent your rival from hurting you…
Q. But can chaos be controlled?
R. Chaos is not controlled. But many times, in chaos what I want is expressed: passion.
Q. Do you suffer or have fun?
A. I have suffered a lot, when I played and now also as a coach. As a footballer I did not express myself in the best way on the field, I only did so in small details. And he was a very good footballer. It was a mental issue, I was lazy. As a coach I also had a lot of trouble. What is necessary, for me, is to be focused on the processes. And I return to Girona. Here the entire club has managed to see that process. And I don’t get overwhelmed. I know they’re going to beat me when I lose, but I also know that the trust with the club is mutual.
Q. Do you continue doing therapy?
R. Yes, and I also use the tools of mindfulnessrelaxation and breathing that I have internalized and that I practice every day.
Q. Are you afraid of going through that pressure situation again somewhere else?
R. It will surely happen to me. And the first months will be hard. The other day a friend asked me if he had a clear idea of the game he was going to use when he went to another team. I said, ‘I don’t know what I’ll do. Am I going to have a start of three? Am I going to open the field with Savinho and Yan Couto?’ Don’t know. The only thing I know is what I want to convey: passion. Then I’ll see if I play a 4-4-2, a 4-3-3. They’ll have to give me time. First I will have to be myself, but then there is a team and a city to which I have to adapt.
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