An unforgettable season

When you take over a team in the middle of a season, you know you need immediate results.

The opportunity to manage Watford came in January 2018, after my time at Rubin Kazan in Russia. You always prefer to start a project from the beginning of the season, because then you have time to build what you really want and get to know the players. But the opportunity to coach in the Premier League was a challenge for me, so I couldn’t turn it down.

The first win came early, in the first Premier League game at home, and after a 0-0 draw at Stoke City. It was against Chelsea – 4-1 at Vicarage Road. We scored three times in the last 10 minutes of the game. Daryl Janmaat, Gerard Deulofeu and Roberto Pereyra got the late goals, while the first came from Troy Deeney.

It was an unforgettable night, as I said in all the post-match interviews. Unforgettable for the fans, players and coaching staff. We, the staff, had never experienced an atmosphere like there was at that match – and more than anything in the final minutes, when we scored three goals.

The atmosphere in the stadiums is one of the things that makes the Premier League special. I’ve coached in Spain, Greece, Russia and Qatar, but England is different. The stadiums are very warm and pleasant environments to play in.

The Premier League is also special for other reasons. As much as I was impressed by the atmosphere in the stadiums, I was also impressed by the organisation of the league and the club. Everything is perfect for professionals in our sport to enjoy football. Honestly, I think the Premier League is now the best place to coach.

"It was a sign that we were doing very well in terms of results, performances and team atmosphere"

It is also true that we were able to enjoy it so much because we did not come to Watford in a situation of maximum urgency, or with the team in the relegation places. That would have been normal for a team that had decided to change coach several months into the season, but in this case it was different.

Yes, Watford had been on a bad run of results. But they were close to mid-table when I took charge, after Marco Silva had left for Everton. That helped us to develop our work in a more relaxed way, with conviction that the season was going well. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember on which matchday we sealed safety that season. It was a sign that we were doing very well in terms of results, performances and team atmosphere, because we never worried about achieving the objective of staying up.

Everything we did during the last five months of the 2017/18 campaign was the basis for what happened the following season. We took steps, and they were all the right ones.

The first was to have good squad-planning during the summer – something you can’t do when you arrive at a club in the middle of the season. We had great success in putting together the team, recruiting players we really needed for a balanced squad.

This balance included bringing together very different characters, because we had players of different nationalities and, therefore, different cultures. But when it came to work, we were all on the same page and used a common language: English. No matter the level of someone’s spoken English, communication in the team – by the players, me and the coaching staff – was always in English.

"Success is not just about the manager or the players. it is about all the people who are part of a club"

I had the experience of working in Russia, where language had been a problem due to the use of translators. Communication through the translator was often slow, and for players even boring at times. At Watford I decided that everything should be spoken in English, which made it easier to form a good group.

In pre-season, we had a very good feeling. This proved important as we started the Premier League in a way nobody expected – four wins in a row. The first match we beat Brighton 2-0 at home, the second we won 3-1 away at Burnley, then came 2-1 victories against Crystal Palace and Tottenham at Vicarage Road.

After the Tottenham game I was able to meet Elton John, Watford’s honorary life president. My wife and I love his music, so it was a very emotional moment.

To start with four wins gave us confidence in the work we were doing, and I was given the Premier League Manager of the Month award for August. I had won this in Spain, too, but there it’s more of a private thing. Hardly anyone outside the club knows you have won it.

At Watford, it was different. People from the Premier League came to the training ground to present me with the trophy and do a series of interviews. In the middle of such a hectic day, I made sure to call my coaching staff. I like to share these kind of moments – the happy ones – with the people around me. “Let’s all take a photo with the trophy,” I told them. I also took pictures with the players and all the club’s staff.

Even though I was taking the trophy home, I wanted everyone to have their photo taken with that award, because it was something that we had all achieved together. I’m not saying that to make myself look good, though. It is how I feel. Success is not just about the manager or the players; it is about all the people who are part of a club. And, at Watford, I wanted that to be extended to everyone.

"The media said that I underestimated the competition. That I did not value the FA Cup. But I did value it"

The impact of four wins and being joint-leaders of the Premier League – alongside Liverpool and Chelsea – had caught the media’s attention. And not only in England, because I also did interviews with Spanish media. They were very interested to know what the secret was behind this surprising Watford team, and how far we could go.

“What is the team’s objective?” they asked. Well, from the beginning we only set ourselves one goal: to win every game, in every competition we played in. That meant it was the same goal in the FA Cup, although that was questioned by the press.

When we played our first FA Cup game that season, I got a lot of quite harsh criticism in England. That was because I rotated the team and put players in the line-up who weren’t starters in the Premier League. The media said that I underestimated the competition, that I did not value the FA Cup. But I did value it, a lot. I played with all the players, because I had confidence in all of them.

And I remember well what I did before our FA Cup campaign had started. I looked at the number of teams playing in the competition – 736. And guess what? Out of those 736, we made it to the final at Wembley. The journey, as it turned out, was very difficult.

In our first three ties, we were drawn away. For our first tie, we played at Woking in the third round and won 2-0. Then we were drawn to play at Newcastle, who had a great team. We won 2-0 there, also. The next round was away to QPR, and we won 1-0.

"When I see the images of the match, with our fans experiencing that semi final, I feel it was truly spectacular"

In fact, we didn’t play a home game in the FA Cup until the quarter finals, against Crystal Palace. That was the only game of the competition at Vicarage Road, and we managed to win 2-1.

All the games we played in the FA Cup were very close, but none like the semi final at Wembley against Wolves. It was a stellar game, because we managed to come back from 2-0 down.

Wolves were a very good team. They were very strong at the back and powerful on the counter, with Raúl Jiménez and Diogo Jota up front. If you left space at the back, they would kill you. Even more so when you had to go forward, looking to get back in the game.

Gerard Deulofeu’s introduction for us in the 64th minute came after Wolves had scored their second goal, and it was a substitution that would prove decisive. We came from behind to win the game 3-2 after extra-time. Now, when I see images of the match, with our fans experiencing that semi final, I feel it was truly spectacular.

The final at Wembley was also special. We were very proud to have been able to get there, alongside finishing 11th in the table. It was the club’s best-ever finish in the Premier League era.

"I knew how important the final was. That was my way of dealing with what was a special occasion for everyone"

The tricky thing, however, was our opponents in the final: Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City.

We knew our chances against them were small, but we wanted to do our best to exploit any possibility of an upset. Unfortunately, we ended up being well beaten.

By the time the game had been decided in their favour, I prioritised giving players a chance to play in the final, rather than simply making sure we didn’t concede any more goals. I knew how important the final was, and that was my way of dealing with what was a special occasion for everyone.

What really puts it into perspective now are the teams that have reached FA Cup finals in recent times. It is usually Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal or Chelsea. In recent years, there hasn’t been a mid-table team like Watford who have been able to play in a final. That reaffirms for me what the team achieved, and how important it was for the club that year.

The best in Watford’s history.