Rubén Albés: “The ‘canalleta’ style is being humble, but looking everyone in the face”

In this second part of Rubén Albés’ interview with GOAL, we will talk to the Galician coach about his arrival in Spanish professional football. The call of Tino Saqués, that first painful stay at Lugo and his subsequent arrival in Albacete, where he is the category revelation coach, consolidates the La Mancha team in the First Division playoff positions with the category penultimate salary cap .

Let’s talk about the arrival in Lugo, how does that happen?

“Life gives you the possibility that the Lugo chance appears and that a ‘crazy’ like Tino Saqués, who is able to bet on a fourth coach with no experience that season. The call surprised me because I had practically done it with a second team. Division B for the transitional season to 1 RFEF and the call really surprised me, yes. We had a video conference, we talked and we understood each other. I had experienced a similar situation in Romania, there were nine matches, here there were seven and I think that’s why I ‘tricked’ him or convinced him to look out for me”.

How is Tino Saqués?

“Especially my experience with him is very good. I am very grateful for the fact that he took a risk with me or had the courage to break with what was established, which might have been to hire another coach And then, he’s a queer president, very humane and who makes risky decisions based on what he believes in. He’s a person who you can talk to, who you can say things the way you feel and who is able to reflect when someone confronts him. forget that with their management they have been in the Second Division for a long time. And besides, he is a person with a great sense of humour, which I love.”

“With Lugo in my first year we were practically relegated, we lost 0-1 to Mirandés and they gave us a penalty in 89′ and another in 93′. just podWe were going to win with something epic.”

How did you manage to save a practically ousted team in just seven days?

“In addition to all the good the players have done and to turn that dynamic into a positive energy, we had that luck that is needed. That flower to achieve salvation in Vallecas, against a playoff team, when we didn’t have at home won.” since October. It was like an important change and that gives you the stability to start a season in the Second Division.”

“Many situations came together. The penalty stopped here in Albacete Cantero, we had played 19 games without winning, we were practically relegated, lost 0-1 to Mirandés and a penalty was awarded in our favor on 89′ and another on 93′. You could only win with something epic and from there there were three wins and another draw”.

The Lugo from his second season was more flashy than the one from the first, right?

“The first save is definitely defending. In the second we were still a team that had a more defensive priority, but we had arguments both in direct play and in starting situations. We were asymmetrical between right and left, we had several very clear intentions and for me it was a Lugo that I liked I would have liked to spend less time in the defense phase but we understood that if we pulled the blanket further to the other side we probably wouldn’t be able to get that except we got it done quite comfortably and with a group of players who I think are appreciated and they were able to improve their professional lives”.

“I didn’t want to sign for Albacete, but they convinced me and now I’m very happy”

And then Albacete arrives. A signing that was very surprising, because it seemed that Rubén Albés was already prepared for higher altitudes. Why are you saying yes to Albacete?

“I wanted to tell him no, I didn’t want to sign with Albacete. I didn’t see it clearly, nobody knows this (laughs). And two people convinced me, one from my technical staff and the other from my agent. When I met that had with both Víctor and Alfonso, there was a really good ‘feel’, but I didn’t know if I felt the need to risk a recently promoted project with the difficulty it brings, with a team refresh and with the uncertainty not knowing what performance the players will give They are from a lower category In the end I listened to them and if I had not listened to them I would have been wrong because I am really happy and I think I have the right Made a decision”.

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Speaking of Alfonso Serrano, he is the big ‘culprit’ of making this squad on a very tight budget. How is the relationship with the sports management?

“Today I think there can be no success if the relationship between the sports management and the coaching staff is not good. In the end, the final decision on transfers and casualties is always taken by the sports management and it should be because coaches are usually more be temporary. But it is true that there must be an understanding between both parties to detect needs, profiles and there must be a line in which we build a team in relation to different factors “.

“We’ve had a very clear line here with players who want to defend themselves and who are hungry, most of them young players who have the ability to play with a lot of energy, who are more offensive than defensive and who fit certain circumstances. economy that are limited”.

He is already famous in the Second Division, but how would Rubén Albés describe the ‘gutter style’?

“The ‘gutter’ style is still a brave team, which wants to attack to score a goal, which also wants to reveal itself in the light of the situation or the first perspective on Albacete and who wants to face the rival that is, of all the humility we have, but without feeling small. From a sense of inferiority, you begin defeated before you begin. You must go with the feeling of being able to dare, each with his weapons and his virtues, but are able to face any rival”.

Trainers usually don’t last long on sites, although there are exceptions to the rule. For example, does Rubén Albés see himself as Albacete’s Alex Ferguson?

“No, because I don’t think I’m old enough to stagnate at any club. That is, to keep challenging myself in different situations, in hostile environments and because I think I have to keep evolving. I’ve extended for two seasons, which is a relatively long period of time, short-medium, but I don’t see myself as twenty, ten or twelve years in a club, because I don’t think I’m at that moment right now I have to experiment, it reach goal, be wrong, succeed and fail to keep evolving. I’m not telling you that I might look for that stability at another point in my life, but now I’m looking to challenge myself”.

Would it be a dream for a Celta fan from Vigo to coach the first team in the future?

“You were born in Vigo, you come from Celta, you go to the stadium and you have an emotional connection with that club. And if it happens one day I will be very happy, but I don’t feel it could be a dream are.” because I think it’s something that can happen, but both at Celta and elsewhere. I’m not much of a dreamer because I believe things can happen. Some are extremely difficult, others less so, but in the end anything can happen.”

Now that this style thing is so fashionable, what does it mean for Rubén Albés to play well?

“It’s very simple. Regardless of your intentions and the model you have, apply it. That is, make what you want happen. I already play very well, it would be that as coaches we are able to properly understand this context to make for the football players. That would play very well.”

“In retrospect, the styles are labels that we coaches put on them. In that sense, I am absolutely against those kinds of labels. I consider myself plastic, I try to adapt as much as possible to my footballers, where they can shine, because this is about what they radiate. This is not about the coach who excels because his team plays the football he wants, but about the football the players can do to win, because winning is the greatest success. Because the greatest ecstasy in a match is a goal, there are not even a hundred passes, not three away passes, not four steals. If we score more goals than the rival, people leave happy”.

“Every coach has his way, but always from the base, that’s the players. I always say one sentence often: feel the natural team. That you see it and say that the team goes naturally, because it flows and is not forced. ” but rather it just comes out. And for this you need to find these relationships that allow everything to flow naturally, to be a well-rounded team and to be comfortable.”

“I would say to Rubén Albés in 2010 that he would have been much more humble, that he would have enjoyed everything that happens more, that he could have enjoyed the profession”

And finally, with all the experience gained in these 13 years in the profession, what advice would this Rubén Albés give to someone who started training in Burjassot in 2010?

“That he would have been much more humble, that he would enjoy everything that happens more, that he could enjoy the profession beyond the result of just one weekend. When you are a 25-year-old pro, you feel that you live in a bubble and i think you start to lose a little bit of humility there because you don’t know how hard and how cruel this world is to understand the players, that they are all different, that you need different things to therefore be much less dogmatic when managing a dressing room”.