Scandals and scoundrels [Part 2]:
You can read part 1 in the series here.
Double-crosses, clueless cows, and killing yourself because of Gary Neville: Four Brilliant Blow-ups in La Liga Press Conferences
“When I lose my temper, honey, you can’t find it any place.”
― Ava Gardner
Short of head of state, few jobs are dissected so publicly and, often, callously, as that of the football manager. For the most part, their work is perceived, and judged, solely through the lens of their results on the pitch. There are few avenues for the football manager to explain, excuse, or contextualise themselves. The press conference is one of them. Yet while the football press conference can be a soapbox on which to communicate ideas, profound or otherwise, it is also a forum for inquisition, more akin, on occasion, to an accused man standing in the dock, than a manager simply answering questions on a game of football.
In the English sphere, managers have dealt with the pressure of these events in a variety of ways. Bizarre Partridge-esque rhetorical questions concerning large flightless birds. Avuncular exasperation. Even pointed silence, sometimes lasting years. Across his three decades at the helm of Manchester United, Alex Ferguson dealt with the press multifariously. Though, on his ill-tempered days (which seemed to be most of them), his treatment of the assembled press extended to open contempt. “Your job is to tell the truth,” he would coldly arraign, as though the truth could only ever adhere to a singular reality, determined by him, which favoured Manchester United. “You’ve been banned for 3 weeks. So, the next time, you don’t get back in. I mean that. You don’t get back in. Finished.” Banishment was a favoured castigation of the Glaswegian. Following a question on Ryan Giggs that he did not appreciate one wee bit, Ferguson, like a gold-ringed Borgia dealing death with a whisper, beckoned over the press officer. “Who asked the question about Giggsy? Him, that asked the question. With the laptop. Aye. Is he coming on Friday? Then we’ll get him. We’ll ban him on Friday.”
And yet, save for one very notable exception in the unique form of Joe Kinnear (see Part 1 of Scandals and Scoundrels) the English football press conference is usually a subdued affair, overextended men under a huge amount of pressure, going through the motions, hoping for nothing more than to avoid yet another problem they don’t need. Hodgson using the word piss, Pearson calling someone a silly ostrich, even Ferguson plotting the exile of journalists for the crime of asking him things, none of this would even raise an eyebrow in Spain.
Ah, Spain. Sunny Spain. Land of Los Galácticos, Messi, and Tiki-Taka. Also home to regional hostilities that make the West Ham v Millwall look like Tom and Jerry, Gaddafi-esque autocratic club presidents put in solitary confinement while in the clink, and thinly-veiled death threats by terrorists against players coupled with murder attempts on club chairmen.
There’s often been a debate about which is a stronger league, the English or the Spanish, ever since the two inherited the mantle from the Italians, (except for the odd Germanic interlude). This is a debate I find as profoundly tiring as the Messi vs Ronaldo binary. (They’re both really, really good, but they’re both so different it’s a redundant comparison, let’s move on). However, one area where the Spanish football is comfortably head and shoulders above its English counterpart is the press conference. Salidas de tono (departures of tone) are common. Sometimes spectacularly. So, come with me on a tour of Iberian indignation, a veritable tasting menu of tantrums, as we sample some of the best in the conniption business. ¡Vamos!
-1- PACO JÉMEZ
Meet the explosive Paco Jémez, (this entire article could be on him) a wide-eyed, kinetic manager who leaves you punch-drunk with his near-constant gesticulation. He is a likeable man, in touch with his emotions, though his default will shilly-shally between apoplexy and roguish good humour. What he lacks in hair, he certainly makes up for in fire. A handy centre-back in his day, Jémez was part of the Euro 2000 Spain squad that would go out to eventual champions France but set pulses racing in the best match of the tournament, beating Yugoslavia 3-4 in a preposterously enjoyable slugfest. Jémez started that match and, perhaps, decided to model his future coaching credo on its chaotic temperament: you score 3, we’ll score 4. As one can imagine, it is a stratagem that has not always met with success. Nonetheless, Jémez is a man who, when confronted with a microphone, will unfailing give his own opinion, no holds barred. Easily-ruffled, and quick to philosophise, he is prone to surly yet almost metaphysically-abstract missives. Yet he’s also capable of delivering laconic wisdom, as though some terse grandmother in a romcom. During his time at Mexico City-based Cruz Azul he got into the following tête-à-tête with an admittedly smart-arsed journalist:
SMART ARSE: So, must we conclude that the responsible party, the guilty party, for the situation that the team finds itself in, is you?
PACO JÉMEZ: I am responsible.
SA: Are you the problem?
PJ: No. Why am I the problem?
SA: Because you have already discarded the possibility that the players are the problem.
PJ: Okay, okay, okay. Forgive me but I think we are getting confused. And you lot are very easily confused. I will clarify for you, I will clarify for you. I am the one that is ultimately responsible. Have no doubts about that. Have not a single doubt.
SA: Then, who is guilty?
PJ: Nobody is guilty here of anything. Responsible. [But not guilty]. Nobody here has murdered, robbed, raped. Responsible. The ultimate responsibility lies with me. Always. Ahead of the players. And today, more than ever. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly.
SA: If Cruz Azul goes down to Second [Division], is Paco Jémez responsible?
PJ: And if the world ends tomorrow? Well, at least I wouldn’t have to see you. What a joy.
SA: No, no. I agree. And if my grandmother had wheels—
PJ: —She’d be a bicycle, yes. Look, I’m not a clairvoyant. Are you? Tell me the winning numbers and I’ll buy a lottery ticket. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. When it happens, then we’ll talk. Don’t talk to me until then. When it happens, we’ll talk. You’ve asked me who is responsible? I’ve told you, I am. *Gestures wildly to signify end of*
SA: Okay, then what do you commit to?
PJ: To work.
SA: But what about results?
PC: A manager can never guarantee results. Never. Or, let me say it another way. I can never guarantee results. I won’t ever promise you a result. Ever. Wherever I go in this world.
When results have gone against him, a favourite gambit of Jémez, wary of being fined for maligning the match officials, is to make the following absurdist statement. “I didn’t see any referees out there today.” (Even if he had remonstrated with them at half time over a sending off). It’s just such a wonderfully petty upgrade to Mourinho’s I prefer not to speak catchphrase.
But I have saved the most resplendent Jémez gem for last. Cast your minds back to January 2016. Rather outlandishly, Gary Neville, then manager of Valencia CF, was deploying a 4-1-4-1 system at home to little Rayo Vallecano, already flirting with relegation. Los Che would be lucky to come away with a 2-2 draw after being played off the pitch by Paco’s Rayito. In the press conference after the match, a keyed up Jémez would face his first question from The Guardian’s Sid Lowe, who, like a gently probing psychiatrist, got right into his feelings.
SID LOWE: Good evening, Paco. Two goals that come from Matty Ryan saves, two long balls, individual errors, and there goes an important victory after eight matches [without a win]. What kind of gut-feeling that does that leave you with?
PJ: *wry smile* There are days when you feel loose or sad because you haven’t contributed anything to this sport... There are other days that you feel football is a shit. Football is a fucking shit. The only team that should have won today was Rayo. We were better in everything, over a great team like Valencia… But today, yes, I do feel like we contributed to this sport. We should be proud. Beyond that, there were a few little things but I don’t think my team should be reproached for anything. My players are all on the floor in there crying. But that’s good evidence of feeling that we let slip something that we felt we had won.
[The next few questions focused on tactics and the current displeasure of the home crowd (plus ça change, eh Valencia fans?) potentially helping the away team. Then a local journalist was handed the microphone and things all went a bit Pedro Tong, as they say in Spain].
JOURNALIST: Good evening, Mr. Jémez, you have spoken on occasion about ‘refereeing decisions’ here [at the Mestalla], I remember last year, you spoke harshly about—
PJ: Well, that would be one of few times. I don’t tend to criticise—oh! The day of the Cup?
JOURNO: Yes, yes.
PJ: *Slams water bottle down on the table* Yes, I ratify and reaffirm my statements.
JOURNO: You spoke of dogs and things that were very…
PJ: Yes, see the thing is, I’m very zoological, I’ll talk about dogs, about horses, about seals.
JOURNO: OK, very briefly: if anyone should be pissed off tonight, it’s Paco Alcácer. Because, even with the little they did, Valencia came away with a point, but they could have taken all three because, and I don’t know if you have seen it, if you have seen it on the TV—
PJ: Yes, no, listen. If Valencia took all three points, I would hang myself right there in the changing room. I would hang myself from the first thing I found in there, using my tie.
JOURNO: I wouldn’t wish that fate on you but—
PJ: *Shrugs, another wry smile* OK.
JOURNO: But you should know that they [Valencia] deserved to win because Alcácer scored the goal in a legal position [onside]. So, the referee made a mistake and, in this case it disadvantaged [Valencia]. So, you, or er, Rayo Vallecano, leave here with that little gift.
PJ: I’m sorry, what was the question?
JOURNO: No, no. The question is: do you think Valencia can be pissed off? Or do you feel you have benefited from an arbitral decision? Take that ask a question or a statement, I don’t know, but you should know that Paco Alcácer scored in an onside position.
PJ: *Stunned, mystified shrug* Maybe I’m very stupid, or maybe you’re very clever…
JOURNO: Do you think the referee disadvantaged Valencia [in disallowing the goal]?
PJ: One question: did you prepare that at home? Or did it just occur to you on the hop?
JOURNO: No, because when I left home the match hadn’t started yet, Alcácer hadn’t scored yet, and Prieto Iglesias hadn’t yet disallowed a perfectly good goal for Valencia.
PJ: Ah. So, then it’s just natural talent that you have.
JOURNO: I imagine so. You do your job, I’ll do mine. Maybe I’m not asking this well, or maybe you’re trying to deflect my point by saying that, but I’m asking; were you benefitted—
PJ: You must like karaoke, yeah? Because you won’t drop that microphone for God Himself.
JOURNO: [Inaudible]
PJ: I don’t talk about referees. See how fast I answered you after your 7-minute monologue?
-2- JAVIER CLEMENTE
Diminutive, red-faced, by turns snarling and chipper, the seasoned Clemente has always, for some reason, reminded me of John Heard. But unlike the exasperated Peter McCallister in Home Alone, Clemente might not have ever forgotten his son while travelling abroad, but he certainly has, while facing the press, left his manners at home on more than one occasion. Imaginatively christened the Blond from Barakaldo, Clemente made his debut in a win against Liverpool in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. But his playing career would last only six years having to retire at the age of just 24 following a serious inoperable injury. Clemente would bounce back from this in what would become his trademark indomitability and get into coaching almost immediately. By the age of just 31, he took the reins of boyhood club, the near-mythic Athletic Bilbao. Within three seasons, he had led them to back-to-back league titles and the 1984 Copa del Rey which is remembered as a bloodbath to this day. Andoni Goikoetxea, the man who almost ended Diego Armando Maradona’s career the year before, still has a pair of boots framed in his living room. The ones he wore when he broke Maradona’s ankle. Not for nothing was he known as the Butcher of Bilbao. In that 84 final, Clemente’s team launched straight into Plan A (Assault Maradona). Nicking a 1-0 win, at the end of the match, having been again kicked all over the pitch by Goikoetxea et al, and racially abused by the Bilbao fans, Maradona finally lost his rag. He would go on to cleanly knock out Miguel Sola (who was kneeling in celebration at the time and had been insulting Diego throughout) with a flying karate knee. The game descended into a 22-man brawl. The King himself was watching, along with 99,999 other fans in the stadium. Oh, and half of Spain on the telly. Fans began throwing objects onto the pitch. Some sixty people were injured including coaches and even the poor photographers. Talk about the magic of the cup.
That bloodbath would do three things. 1) It would bring to an end Maradona’s unhappy time in Barcelona. Never again would he don the Blaugrana shirt. 2) It would, rightly or wrongly, come to characterise Javier Clemente. Fighter. Ruffian. Winner. It doesn’t matter if you had the best player that ever lived. You lot still have to beat us. And when all the blood had been cleaned up, when all was said and done, Clemente had won another trophy. 3) It would also cement, (having been bubbling away) one of the most memorable rivalries in Spanish football in the 1980s between two inexorably opposed men. A World Cup-winning manager, César Menotti dripped cool; a long-haired philosophiser, who wore casual clothes and dropped literary references into conversation. He would take languid drags on his cigarette on the bench, one eye squinting as he calmly analysed the game, and was prone to saying things like:
“There’s a right-wing football and a left-wing football. Right-wing football suggests that life is struggle. It demands sacrifices. We have to become of steel and win by any method—obey and function, that’s what those with power want from players. That’s how they create retards, useful idiots that go with the system.”
Clemente, on the other hand, was a front-back-and sides kind of a man, prowling the touchline, raging against fate at the top his lungs, I shit in the whore mother (it’s a thing in Spain), I shit in the Holy Host, (another thing), and I shit on my own fucking ancestors (don’t ask). When a journalist would, many years later, defend his line of questioning by saying I’ve observed a lot of football. The ever-epigrammatic Clemente shrugged. “Yeah? Well, the cows at Lezama [Bilbao’s bucolic training ground] see football every day and they haven’t got a fucking clue.”
The rivalry between Clemente and Menotti began the moment the Butcher carved up Maradona’s ankle in 1983. Losing the final a year later didn’t, one imagines, do much in Menotti’s mind to bury the hatchet. By 1988, the Argentine was managing Atlético Madrid, while Clemente had moved on to Espanyol. The latter would reignite the war of words by calling Menotti “a bluffer that lives on scorn and metaphors.” In response, Menotti quoted Freud, “when faced with complexes, people react with violence,” going on to allude to Clemente’s “fascist views.” Of course, the Blond from Barakaldo wouldn’t let that stand. He went for the jugular, contemptuously spitting on the jewel in Menotti’s crown, his defining moment: “Fascism? He only has a World Cup title because the ‘President’ bought it.” This was in reference to Jorge Rafael Videla, the despicable dictator and architect of the Dirty War in Argentina. Menotti, an avowed lefty, would have to shake the totalitarian usurper’s hand and thank him for his kind words as the crook praised his work as manager. That 1978 World Cup, played at home, is still mired in shadows of a military junta that lurked behind it.
Javier Clemente has presided over football teams for the last 45 years, including a slew of major Spanish clubs outside of the so-called ‘big two’, as well as the national team between 1992 and 1998, guiding Spain to two World Cups and Euro 96. But his beefs in the press conference would not be limited to César Menotti and the cows of Lezama. In 2012, after journalist Juan Gancedo had labelled Clemente’s tactics obsolete, he would say: “One day, we will tell your son what his father is. A scoundrel. An impolite scoundrel. And stupid to boot.” An incensed Gancedo would walk out. “Okay,” the next question came. Let’s talk football.”
Clemente grinned. “If we can. Because remember, I don’t know anything about it.”
But perhaps his most infamous moment would come in 2008. The necessary context is found again in the late 80s, (clearly Don Clemente had had his Shreddies that decade) around the time he was throwing shade on Menotti’s World Cup. Radio journalist Manolo Lama (who, incidentally, is the Spanish commentator in the FIFA video game series), was involved in a serious car crash. 20 years later, in 2008, Clemente had the following to say on the subject:
“I sent him a telegram. I wrote: I’m very sorry about your accident, even though we don’t get on professionally, even though we’re currently whatever, I hope you get better soon. But do you know what I would think today? What would have been very handy for me? Personally? And I mean me, Javier Clemente, now speaking selfishly? Well, that in 1986, he [Lama] would have clapped it [died]. Because he’s smashed me 2,000 times. He insulted me 10,000 times. And there I was, hoping he stayed among the living? Am I an imbecile or what? That I want a bloke who has been battering me for 25 years to live? That has wanted you to get sacked from everywhere you’ve gone? That wants things to go badly for you? That wants you to get hammered?”
When confronted afterwards for wishing death on Lama, Clemente would defend himself thusly: “No, I said the opposite. Nobody should wish death on anyone. Check your facts.”
Let’s just hope Manolo Lama took it on the chin. After all, it’s in the game.
-3- MANOLO PRECIADO
In many ways, Manuel ‘Manolo’ Preciado doesn’t belong on this list. A gentleman not prone to histrionics, the phlegmatic Preciado resembled a greyed Asterix, his mighty painter’s brush moustache obscuring half of his face. After his wife died of cancer in 2002, he would carry her photograph with him on matchdays, sitting alone on the bench before kick-off, and kissing it for good luck. His 15-year-old son would die two years later in a car crash. “I had two choices,” Manolo would say. “I could shoot myself or I could carry on.” Thankfully for us, he chose the latter. He was, if you’ll pardon the cliché, one of the good guys in football. But none of this is to say that he was a retiring man. He was a witty, rambunctious manager with a knack for deadpan poetry. When asked to evaluate then Valencia winger Joaquín, he described him thusly: “more dangerous than a monkey holding a gun.” And, after a good run of form had followed a poor one, Preciado would say: “We’re not Bayern (sic) Leverkusen now, just as back then we weren’t the last shit Pontius Pilate ever took. This is an inexpensive team but one with a pair of bollocks like General Espartero’s horse.”
Gravel-voiced and with a 40-a-day habit, Preciado looked like a man that had been through the wars, a man whose face was usually open and warm, despite it looking like he’d only had three hours sleep. His 15-year coaching career would mainly focus on the lower leagues of Spanish football, achieving promotion with Levante (after 41 years outside of the top flight) and Sporting Gijón, where he would become a legend. And it is here, at this club, during the 10-11 season, where he earns his place on this list of press conference barneys. In the ignominious Venn diagram of press conferences, José Mourinho, and football managers losing their rag, nobody had expected to see Manolo Preciado’s name appear. And yet.
It started in September when Sporting Gijón travelled to the Camp Nou with Preciado resting a number of starting players. Even so, Guardiola’s all-conquering treble-winning Barcelona side (Messi scored over 50 goals that year. Fifty…) could only beat Sporting 1-0. Cold comfort to José Mourinho who, after, suggested publicly that Sporting had thrown the match. “The league is theirs [FC Barcelona’s]. If that happens a lot, it will be very hard.”
Initially, Preciado wouldn’t rise to it, putting his respect for the Portuguese on record. But then, ahead of a Sporting-Real Madrid match-up, Mourinho went on the radio. He repeated his allegation, saying that he thought Preciado should be punished (as if the man ought to consider the Special One’s title aspirations in future when selecting his starting XI). Preciado’s response was legendary, not only for its vehemence from such a genial man, but for putting into words what most of Spain thought of the tiresome yet prolific outbursts of Mourinho.
“I swear by the most sacred,” began a visibly angry Manolo Preciado in his press conference to the shock and, let’s face it, delight of the assembled journalists. “That I wasn’t going to respond [to this]. I thought it might have been a spur of the moment tantrum [from him]. But I was surprised to return home last night and hear him on the radio where, not only does this gentleman not take back what he said, but on top of things he goes further and, more or less, asks for the death penalty for me. If this were England, it seems, apparently, I would be in jail. I can look at all this in one of three ways. Firstly, as a joke. And if this was a joke, I don’t like it one bit. I think it’s very bad. Secondly, as a provocation to the manager of Barcelona, or someone at Barcelona, to make them react. And if he thinks that, he’s a dreamer, because they won’t respond. And thirdly, that he meant what he said. And if he meant what he said, he’s a scoundrel. And a very bad professional colleague. I’m plumping for this last one.”
Now a brief pause to 1) simply say merked. And 2) to add a little linguistic context here. The word in Spanish Preciado used was canalla which is difficult to translate. Loosely, I’ve gone with scoundrel. Swine works too. Even scallywag. But all of these are vaguely milquetoast insults in English, almost used affectionately, as though tossed after a cheeky child in 1920s Yorkshire who has just nicked a biscuit from some tin. In Spanish, the essence of this word is far stronger, you are calling someone low, a rat, even scum. Some thought it was too much. Others thought it was Mourinho who had started all this. And he was long overdue a dose.
“I wasn’t going to make a declaration,” Preciado continued after the insult. “Because it could seem like I’m trying to foment a hostile ambience for Real Madrid [in the forthcoming match]. Nothing is further from the truth. But he has fomented one. And he’s going to find one. He’ll find one, for sure. Because listen, we’re not mugs here. We’re town folk. We’re humble, but we’re sportsmanlike. We know how to win. And we know how to lose. And if nobody in Madrid will tell this gentleman what respect is, I’ll tell him myself. We deserve the same respect as him, with all his titles and with his top.”
Will you shake hands with him?
“I shake hands with everyone, of course. But what I won’t do is keep my mouth shut my whole life like an imbecile. I wasn’t going to say anything about this, for one thing I like the guy—liked the guy—I don’t like him much now. But for fuck’s sake, we’re not made of stone.”
Like the best barbs in this article, the ones that really stick in the flesh, that ones that really hurt, are the ones based in reality. For all Mourinho has won in football, for all the silverware, and for all (sometimes grudging) respect he has earned, Preciado would go on to hit upon the one thing the Portuguese, perhaps, does not have falling out of his pockets: friends in football.
“I repeat, I’m a professional and if he doesn’t know me because he comes from another galaxy, I’ll tell him that on my CV there are also promotions and triumphs. But above all there are a lot of friends in there. I’ve known how to win and how to lose. He, for now, almost always wins. But it doesn’t seem like he knows how to win. But sooner or later, watch, he’ll lose. Because in this world, you keep on spitting upwards, it’ll end up landing on you.”
Do you think he will—
“Do I think he’ll care what I say? No. But I think he has put together one of his movies in his head and his people and the press will feed those fictions. The problem is that his movie lacks respect, it concerns me and my players, and it’s a grave lack of respect. He’s saying we’ve gifted a match. But who in fuck’s name is this guy to even think that? What’s he playing at? Ask my colleagues in the first division, the second division, Segunda B, ask them what they think of me as a colleague and a rival. En fin, let people draw their own conclusions. If they want.”
Manolo, do you understand that what you’ve said here today will—
“Yeah, it’ll go around the globe,” he quipped. “That’s why I’ve combed my hair today.”
In a tetchy match, Real Madrid would win 0-1, courtesy of a Higuaín goal. Preciado, apparently, waited in the carpark to confront Mourinho. In the return leg, however, in April 2011, Preciado would have his revenge, beating Real Madrid by the same score and becoming the first manager in almost a decade to triumph over Mourinho at home. After the match, Mourinho entered the Sporting dressing room to congratulate them. Unlike many on this list, Preciado would bury the hatchet and he would become firm friends with Mourinho.
The affection Manolo Preciado occasioned in people far outweighed the trophies that may or may not have stood on his mantelpiece. Even when Manuel Vega Arango, then president of Sporting Gijón, sacked him in 2012, he choked up, holding back his tears, and said, “I dismiss you, but from the heart.” Preciado would simply pat him twice affectionately on the hand.
Preciado is a Sporting Gijón legend, his fan-funded statue standing today outside El Molinón, the street running behind the stadium named Manuel Preciado Grove. There was even a song written about him. “He gave me everything in football,” David Barral would say. “He signed me, he allowed me to enjoy football in Primera Division, I was a son to him. We would have dinners together, go the cinema, our wives. He made me a big player, tell the truth. The man deserves to be remembered. That’s why I have his name tattooed, I have his initials.”
On the 7th of June 2012, Manolo died alone in a hotel room, the day he signed on with Villarreal, the peak of his career. He was 54-years-old. Most didn’t know Manolo Preciado, but anyone who had even heard of him was saddened by his loss. The man was a life lesson.
-4- LUIS ENRIQUE
Chances are you’ve almost certainly already heard of this card. Having played at both Real Madrid and Barcelona, getting his nose broken by Tassotti in the 1994 World Cup (the referee would wave play-on despite the amount of blood), to managing AS Roma, FC Barcelona, and now the Spanish national side; Luis Enrique has been around. A hardened campaigner that exudes an almost intimidating conviction in his own abilities, he is churlish, cocky, and perennially-hoarse as though he has just gotten through giving someone a monumental bollocking five minutes ago. His nickname, Lucho, was earned simply for a resemblance to another player with the name. It just so happens, that in the Spanish language, lucho also means: ‘I fight.’ The man might look like Rufus Sewell’s younger brother, but he is well known in Spain for his withering tongue in the press conference. After Barcelona fell to an expected loss in the league, Luis Enrique shrugged. “Football is like this. Each view it as they wish. And it’s marvellous that it’s like this. If only the teams with the best players won, then this game would be less fun than going out dancing with your own sister.”
Near on every football manager named in this article does not enjoy facing the media in press conferences. They have better things to be doing. A couple are openly crabby. But few are so translucently inimical as Luis Enrique. With a saturnine shake of the head, or a lingering glare, the man gives off the sense that he would rather be reversing through roadkill than wasting his breath on the press. He is a man that thrives on, and is motivated by adversity, a born non-conformist. After retiring, Enrique moved to Australia to focus on surfing. Then it was marathons, New York in 2005, Amsterdam in 2006, Firenze in 2007. In the same year, he would also complete the Frankfurt Ironman. One perceives Luis Enrique in the press conference as a lion in the long grass observing prey within striking distance, even if simply too small to bother devouring. But while mostly above expending energy, he will, occasionally, languidly swipe out a paw. (Those with a rudimentary grasp of Spanish will know that malo means bad. Those without, we’re in another lockdown. Knowledge is power).
VÍCTOR MALO: Afternoon, Víctor Malo of the Diario Gol. How would you say the physical preparation has been influenced by the interruption in the month of April?
LUIS ENRIQUE: *Derisive laugh* What did you say that surname was?
VM: Malo.
LE: Correct. Next question.
Luis Enrique is also not above jejune sarcasm. When asked if he thought his Barcelona side was the right environment in which Neymar could reach his potential as the best player in the world, Luis Enrique responded with a comical whisper. “I’ve just lost my voice… I’ve just lost my voice because this is something that I have answered many, many times.” But these examples have only showcased his acerbity very much in second gear. It’s when Luis Enrique really says what he thinks that you get a measure of his true mercilessness. To quote Jamie McDonald from In the Loop: “Oh, you know me. Kid gloves… But made from real kids.”
I write this the week Spain demolished Germany 6-0, their biggest loss in a competitive match and their worst defeat for almost a century. It was, undoubtedly, Luis Enrique’s finest moment as Spain boss. Such a lopsided result, against arguably the finest opposition in the world, might suggest the Spanish national side is starting to resemble the best version of itself from a decade ago. While the qualification to the, frankly irrelevant, ‘final four’ of the frankly irrelevant ‘Nations League’, is defensibly a positive step, it was only achieved in the final match. Germany would have dumped Spain out with a draw. Luis Enrique, unwilling or unable, had not yet delivered an identical call-up list of players. His second stint as Spain manager (more on that in a moment), has smelled more of cagey experimentation, a self-aware team that found itself in an awkward transition. And a team putting up numbers that told disparate stories—sun and shade, as the Spanish say. The doubts had surfaced long ago.
Luis Enrique’s time at Barcelona was unquestionably a success. He won 9 out of a possible 13 trophies available to him. Even so, a year later, there was some hushed discomfort with his appointment as manager for the national team. Here was a man with history, a man who had upset apple carts, a man, perhaps, too honest for the requisite diplomacy to keep the regional politics and corresponding odium out of a national side representing one of the most uniquely fractious countries in the world. (It’s a long story for another day. For now, let’s just leave it at the fact that ‘Spanish regional/national identity’ has its own sodding Wikipedia page).
After crushing Germany, (or giving them a bath, as the Spanish say) Luis Enrique reminded the press that he had told them before the game that he had been optimistic. He conceded, it was a great result, he was pleased they had restricted the Germans to two shots across 95 minutes. But even amid this great victory, he still had to have the last word, reminding the journalists of what he had said prior to the match: we weren’t as bad as you lot made out before the game and we won’t be as good as you will say we are tomorrow. His players would go on to echo the sentiment. So, in this sweet moment for Luis Enrique, it’s worth asking: how did we even get here?
As mentioned above, this is his second stint as Spain manager. After some nine months in charge, Luis Enrique took a leave of absence in March 2019 citing personal reasons. His assistant manager and friend, Robert Moreno, took over on an interim basis. In June 2019, Luis Enrique resigned as manager of Spain, asking for his privacy to be respected at that time. (His daughter would tragically die of bone cancer two months later at the age of just nine).
After victories in his first three games in charge, on the 19th of June, the faintly-cherubic Moreno signed a contract to lead Spain into Euro 2020. Moreno would guide an unbeaten Spain to classification with a win rate of 78% having conceded 4 goals in 9 matches and scoring 29. Moreno might well have been inexperienced but the team was clicking. And yet by November 2019, Moreno would be sacked, Luis Enrique would be reinstalled as manager, the latter throwing the former under the bus in a brutal press statement, claiming to have been double-crossed by his friend. But in this Shakespearean betrayal, who was Caesar and who was Brutus? Was this a case of a first officer temporarily filling the captain’s seat and getting too comfortable in his absence? Or was this a man understandably walking away through grief only to change his mind some months later? To this day, their stories don’t match up. What is known is that it all culminated in a brutal statement from Luis Enrique:
“The disagreement with Robert Moreno occurs on the 12th of September. That’s the only day these past few months that I have had contact with Robert Moreno. He calls me, we have a meeting in my house lasting 20-30 minutes in which I perceive clearly that he wants to take [be in charge of Spain at] Euro 2020. He then confirms that, if I want, he’ll go back to being my assistant manager afterwards. Unfortunately, this wasn’t something that took me by surprise. I saw it coming due to what hasn’t happened during these last few weeks. And in this moment, I will open a parenthesis. I will try and place myself in the opposing point of view. Forcing myself to be sincere, I’d have to say that I understand [him]. I understand it fills him with pride to be the national team manager. I understand that it’s the opportunity of his life. I understand that he worked a lot to reach that moment. I understand that he’s ambitious. And being ambitious is a valuable quality in this society. But for me? It’s disloyal. I would never do this. I don’t want anyone with these characteristics in my staff. It’s that simple, and that clear. Exaggerated ambition isn’t a virtue, to me, it’s a massive defect. OK? I close parenthesis. I repeat: I understand his position, I can just never share it. That’s why I have taken this decision. What did I tell him in that meeting? I told him that I don’t see him as my assistant manager any longer. And that I will never see him as my assistant manager ever again.”
Blimey. Robert Moreno went on to take the AS Monaco job a few weeks later and, in true Spanish style, this painful history was all swept under the rug. In February 2020, he gave an interview to Marca in which he said his conscience was clear and that he no longer thought about the affair. Though he did admit: “I don’t think I’ll ever know Luis Enrique’s motives.”
To this day, exactly what went down is not known. The Spanish Football Federation made it clear that Enrique had told them that his time with the national team was over and Moreno was offered a contract to take Spain to Euro 2020. Later, he would make the point that the only reason Luis Enrique was able to return was because he took over in the first place and, had the FA appointed another man, this return would have been impossible. Then again, the notion that Moreno’s position existed, only and up until Luis Enrique decided to return, had been floating around from the start (and after) his appointment as ‘permanent’ manager. If Moreno suddenly decided that he actually didn’t want his former superior to come back until after the tournament, one might understand why Luis Enrique felt betrayed. He had given Moreno his start. Moreno existed in football because of Luis Enrique. Moreover, if Moreno were to lead Spain into Euro 2020, particularly if he achieved success, his reversion to assistant manager would be so ridiculous as to be untenable. Maybe Luis Enrique simply felt like his former assistant had overstepped, or gotten too big for his boots. Whatever the truth, Luis Enrique threw him under the bus and Robert Moreno went quietly into the night.
Still, I suppose it could have been worse. He could’ve been called an ostrich.
Nicolás Obregón, The Left-sided Problem
Nicolás is a British-Spanish crime writer/football fan based in Los Angeles.
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