Today I want to share with you the highlights of the last interview I was given last February.
An interview in which I felt very comfortable and in which I had the opportunity to relive important moments of my life, always linked to sport in general and football in particular, through questions whose answers were redrawing my professional career. I invite you to keep reading to get to know me a little bit better thanks to some of the snippets I’ve selected from the interview (if you want to see it in full, I’ll add the link at the end of this post).
To begin with, the million-dollar question: “The Gus moment”.
Among all the moments of my career, I undoubtedly chose the final of the Copa America against Brazil in 1995. After a hard-fought match played in Montevideo and with all the home fans expecting us to win, the 90 minutes ended in a 1-1 draw. And so it went to penalties, where I was assigned the 6th spot-kick. I don’t think I had ever been more nervous in all my life. And when Sergio Martinez kicked the ball, and I saw it hitting the end it was…. Explosion. The best feeling I had ever had.
Talking about background and family…
With a father who is a professional basketball player and a mother who was a keen sports person as well, sport has always been present in my life. My father pushed me to football. He wanted to be a football player, but life took him into basketball. My father won the Copa America in basketball with Uruguay, and I won the Copa American in football… It’s like a family affair. I was naturally pushed because everybody played football. We started playing at the age of 5 in a local team of seven, and at 9 or 10 years old we went to Argentina one week to you stay in the house of a local player, and this this player came back next month to your house… Those were my first international games. And since then my father told me: “we don’t lose against the Argentinians here”.
A funny fact about my first professional contract
I’m sure it was very, very little money. But I was so scared that I took a taxi for the first time. I paid for a taxi to go home because at that time, you were paid in cash. I went to the club, I signed up a paper, they gave me the cash and I had to go home… but did not feel like taking a bus. So I took a taxi. When I arrived home, everybody was waiting for me. A Special moment, getting the first one. My family cried.
Life at Zaragoza
I got married just a year before, so I went to Zaragoza with my wife. Everything was around football. And in Zaragoza we had our two sons. It was practically “training-home”. After a few seasons playing for Real Zaragoza, in 1995 something special happened, which united the whole city.
In the European Cup Winners’ Cup, Real Zaragoza got rid of Gloria Bistrita and Tatran Presov in the first rounds without much difficulty. On 10 May 1995, at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, we played and won the final against the Arsenal (the reigning champions). Before 1995 you would go past the schools in Zaragoza and you would see ten boys with football shirts: 4 with football shirt Barcelona, 4 for the Real Madrid, maybe one or two from Zaragoza. After 1995, there was a transformation in that sense. Nearly all of them would be wearing Zaragoza football shirts.
From Zaragoza to Chelsea
It was not easy to leave because my whole life was in Zaragoza. But then it was real. The 97 was a family decision. It changed our life. And I have a feeling that English football was good for me, for my style. Joining the Chelsea at the start of something quite revolutionary and beginning… Because in 1997 Chelsea hadn’t become one of the big teams but they were on the way.
“I had a feeling at Chelsea that I didn’t have in another club. When I was standing in the tunnel, I looked in midfield – it was Dennis Wise, Dan Petrescu, Di Matteo and me, plus Gianfranco Zola”.
Moving to Spurs
Glen Holler was a big part of it because he came to convince me to go there. And the truth is I was very naïve. I didn’t realise it would be, so dramatic. And suddenly I found myself on the other side… and in a third game we beat Chelsea. It was a strange night, but it was important as well as the oppression when your playing career comes to an end.
Leap into coaching
I started thinking about it in Harlington. Next to me, in the dressing room, is Gianluca Vialli, a great player. But the next day, he’s no longer there. He’s in the manager’s office. So I said to myself: “Maybe this can happen to me in 2 years”. So then I started to pay attention to why. As we do this, why we do this, why we rest today or why more than before. Before I was just training and playing. From that moment I started to take notes of what you like, what you don’t like… And the player becomes a player manager.
Then I left Spurs and went to Uruguay. We spent a year and a half or two years there, until I met Dennis again. I went back two or three times for some celebrations for Chelsea’s 100th anniversary. And I came back to England to start with Dennis, from whom I learned a lot … and then I went with Juan de Ramos in the Spurs. Two opposite styles, different football. Dennis, crazy and electrical. Juande calm and control all the time. It was perfect for me to get something from both. And then I decided to be a coach.
My period in Brighton
It was a good opportunity in Brighton and I took the risk. And I learnt that way, in those games “in the one ugly Tuesday night”: no lights, raining and you’re there getting wet. Proper football, proper football.
It was an extraordinary evolution. As a club, Brighton was by far my best moment.Not the most important, but as a coach, what I achieved in Brighton, in terms of the progression and the way we play football, was unrepeatable. I thought it would be easy to do the same but I has not been possible.
The start was tremendous, we got promoted in the second season: we went in the league. I had, and still have an absolutely tremendous relation with Tony Bloom. I think the two together were perfection. The club started getting bigger and wanted to do things differently, but I still had three years left on my contract. We talked and we didn’t manage to get any closer. And then, I received a letter where we were suspending through a disciplinary disciplinary action. And I got fired while I commentating live on a BBC football programme about the Confederations Cup match between Nigeria and Spain.
Taking over in Sunderland
We started working with my assistant trying to treat the players the way we would have liked to be treated when we were players. Because for us, the most important thing in a team is the players. There are the fans, the managers, the coaches… But in the end, it’s all up to the players. If they are good, they perform. And then we’re all good.
We made the press understand why we tried, and some crazy they liked it. It was the toughest job that I had in my life. No doubt.
International Manager
That was a big change because you don’t have the players every single day. So I had to simplify. Base the game in a few 5-6 compulsory things in attack and defense. And from there, try to improve in certain things slowly. I try to select my players well, that’s the key. But then, the relationship is difficult when you don’t have them every day. So I try to be in contact all the time with them to be updates on theis injuries, problems at home, feelings when they are not playing… Everything to be sure that when they get with the national team they are physically, but especially, mentally ready.
Bonus: My best XI
The best goalkeeper I played against: Peter Schmeichel
Back four:
• Roberto Carlos
• Cafú
• Maldini
• Marcel Desailly
Midfield
• Paul Scholes
• Pep Guardiola
• Michael Laudrup
Strikers
• Maradona
• Ronaldo (the Brazilian)
• Gianfranco Zola