Positive dynamics

I often get involved in ventures that perhaps another coach wouldn’t accept. But you know what? I am a bit of a go-getter.

When I’m offered a challenge, I always focus on the positives and find it hard to see the negatives. Maybe that is more of a flaw than a virtue, because it sometimes lands me in tricky situations. But over the past five years everything has turned out really well.

That starts with my time at Burgos Club de Fútbol, where we faced extremely serious financial problems. Despite that, we won promotion to Spain’s second tier, then stayed up in the first year with a squad we could barely strengthen. The following season, we spent almost the entire campaign in the playoff place for promotion to La Liga.

I can also tell you about FC Cartagena, where the challenge was greatest when we arrived. The team was bottom of the table and stuck in a very negative cycle. The hardest part in those situations is changing the momentum. When I take over a team, I always focus on the positives: the squad, the possibilities, the fixture list and the overall context. I analysed all of that, but once inside Cartagena there were things that weren’t quite as I expected.

That was probably why it was so difficult for us to get going, with poor results in the first 10 games. From January 2024 onwards it was tremendously satisfying, though, because we became the best team in the second half of the season. I compared it to the Apertura [opening] and Clausura [closing] tournaments in Argentina. That is how I conveyed it to the players. We even made a table for the second half of the season – we updated it every weekend, and it was a table we topped.

We did that because I believe that positive dynamics generate positive things. I wanted the players to see that we were on a winning streak. Yes, the actual table is from the whole season’s results, but I wanted to separate it so they would see we were on a positive path.

“I was very clear about the path I had to take to reach the top”

When I arrived at Levante in the summer of 2024, the team had just come off three difficult seasons. First, they were relegated from La Liga to the Segunda División. Then they missed out on promotion, losing to Alavés with a last-minute goal in the second leg of the playoff. The following year, they didn't even make it to the playoffs.

Emotionally, the team was depressed. We had to change the mindset because there were many players – good ones – who had fallen into a cycle of pessimism. They had a lack of optimism due to all the bad things that had happened. It was a different kind of work for me, clearing their heads and making them believe that everything could go well if we did things right. And that is exactly what happened, as we achieved promotion.

I have been in three very different situations in recent years, but all of them were highly rewarding, with incredible outcomes. So I am very happy, because as coaches we have a very difficult job. It is rare not to be dismissed, and even rarer not to encounter difficulties.

But my career as a coach goes way beyond the last five years. In fact, I have taken a long detour to reach the top division for the first time. I had started coaching in the fourth division – the Tercera División – with my hometown club, Parla. We were in in a promotion playoff to reach the third tier, then known as Segunda B. Then I coached in Segunda B at Navalcarnero. There, we were on the verge of playing in the promotion playoff, didn’t reach it, but had the best season in the club’s history, with players who were earning just €400 a month. To coach in the second tier I had to get promoted with Burgos. And then, to coach in the first division, I had to get promoted. I was very clear about the path I had to take to reach the top. I needed to achieve promotion or it would have been very difficult. 

From there, people get to know you, and you get more opportunities to coach at higher levels. If you haven’t been a professional footballer, that is how it works. There is no point complaining about it or seeing it as a hindrance. It is simply the reality, so you must accept it and try to do your best. Above all, you must enjoy the journey. That is what I have done, and I have enjoyed it immensely. For me, every team I coached was the best in the world, regardless of the division. If you can’t accept that, you have to do something else.

In life, you also have to be grateful to the people who have given you opportunities. I am enormously grateful to the coaches I worked with, all of whom were well-known footballers who played for big teams, which gave them tremendous experience.

“I had to keep surviving when football wasn’t enough to live on”

I was Luis Milla’s assistant during the 2012/13 season, at Al Jazira Club in the UAE. Luis is a man with a lot of history and knowledge. I also spent two years with Julen Lopetegui at Porto. We played in the Champions League, where we reached the quarter finals in 2014/15 and were knocked out by Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich. That was priceless, not only in terms of sport, but also in terms of player management. That Porto team had Casemiro, Óliver Torres, Iker Casillas, Brahimi and Ricardo Quaresma. I learned a lot from Julen, sharing many things on a football level.

And I also learned a lot from Fernando Hierro. First on his staff at Real Oviedo, and then with the Spanish national team. When Fernando took charge of the national team, he gave me the opportunity to go to the 2018 World Cup as assistant coach – something that, given my profile, is very difficult to achieve. He was one of the best centre-backs in the world for years, and his track record gave him a special status. But that is not enough. It also matters what kind of person you are. I gained a tremendous amount of experience working with him that now makes me feel confident in any situation.

Everything I have experienced off the pitch has also had a big influence on my career as a coach. Years ago, I passed the municipal police exam in Madrid. Policing was not my vocation, nor was it my intention to make it so. But I had to keep surviving when football wasn’t enough to live on. I became very attached to the profession, and am very proud to have been a police officer. I had fantastic colleagues, and all I did was help people a lot. For years, I worked on gender-based violence, doing my police work at night and coaching football in the mornings. It was very hard, but it allowed me to continue coaching.

During my years as a police officer, on March 11 2004, I experienced the Madrid train bombings – known as 11-M in Spain. Along with several colleagues, I was one of the first police officers to arrive there. It was the most brutal experience I have ever had in my life. It is impossible to forget and not be affected by it. When you see people dying in your arms, when they ask you for help, you do everything you can to assist, but it is very difficult. It was barbaric, like a war zone. That is something you never forget.

Of course, it affects you as a person and makes you put many things into perspective. From that moment, football – which I had believed was the most important thing – became the most important of the least important, which is no small matter. When the 11-M bombings happened, I was coaching a youth team in Parla. That week we played at Getafe, and when we scored a goal, all the players ran to hug me. I still get a lump in my throat when I talk about it, because the boys came to embrace me knowing what had happened, knowing what I had been through. It was overwhelming.

“Myself and my coaching staff were distributing medicines to the towns affected by the floods”

They came to rally around and support me, when I should have been the one supporting them. But they had seen my suffering, what had happened, and they were the ones who gave me support. I remember it so well.

Football is something I have always clung to. It is a refuge in my life, because it embodies many values: effort, sacrifice, camaraderie, solidarity, teamwork, and the spirit of self-improvement. All these values are present in football, and they are extraordinary. Even if you have never been a professional player, football teaches you these values for life.

In 2024 I went through another very difficult situation in Valencia with the DANA disaster, when Spain suffered its worst flooding in recent history. The 11-M bombings and the DANA disaster are two different realities, but the emotional management is the same; trying to be as supportive as possible, empathising with those who have suffered, and helping in every way you can.

Levante did an extraordinary job. My players, the coaching staff, the players’ families, my own family… everyone was helping at our stadium, the Ciutat de València, which became an incredible collection point.

Myself and my coaching staff were distributing medicines to the towns affected by the floods. My daughter, who is a nurse, gathered the medicines and handed them to us. My wife also helped with co-ordination. Many of the club’s employees worked around the clock. It was an overwhelming experience.

Our training ground was completely flooded and unusable. We had to train at the stadium for many days, until we could return to some sense of normality. I say some sense of normality because not everything was fine. It was emotionally challenging to train at the stadium. We would finish the session and pass by the collection area. It was impossible to ignore it, even during training. Entering and leaving, there was the noise of machinery, trucks and people arriving. It was very difficult to disconnect, and it affected us a lot.

“We tried to turn something as brutal as that into something positive”

To get back to playing, we had to try to be very professional and find a way. The only thing we could do to help those people was to give them some joy in the midst of a catastrophe. We had tried to help with the other efforts I have explained, but the best help we could give was to compete and win, so they would feel proud of their players, team and city.

However, the blow from the flooding was very hard. It was difficult for us to get back into competition. When we returned to playing games after the suspension of several matches, we dropped almost to mid-table. On top of that, we were eliminated from the Copa del Rey. The team was still in shock.

Then we pulled ourselves together. We got back on track – especially mentally – regrouped the players and focused on the road ahead. It was very difficult, very tough, but we tried to turn something as brutal as that into something positive. A force to keep going.

Emotions, however, are difficult to control. In the last four matches, when promotion was within reach, we felt the anxiety and pressure. These are moments that go beyond the game. You know when a tennis player wants to close out a match because they are about to win their first major tournament? They have never won it before, they are two sets up and 5-4 ahead in the last set. They are so close, but then their hand shakes a little. That was the analogy I used with the players: “We must not shrink and make ourselves small. We have to try to be as close as possible to what we have been all season.”

This is how we managed the group, with a composed approach, ensuring they didn’t fold under pressure. We gave the players the necessary pause, while also maintaining the intensity required for the matches.

It was a very rewarding, very difficult task, but in the end it worked out well. Even more so when we secured promotion in the final seconds of the match against Burgos, with one game left to play. It was a moment we all celebrated, remembering all the people who had suffered because of the floods. The promotion was for them.

“I am going to put all my experience into my coaching”

Looking ahead to this season, my first as head coach in La Liga, I am very pragmatic. I don’t put a “finally” or “I deserved this” spin on it, because that would be looking out for myself. And I don’t look out for myself, I look out for my team.

I do know that I am going to put all my experience into my coaching. The experiences I have had personally, including with the 11-M bombings and the DANA disaster. And my football experience, such as the World Cup with Fernando Hierro, the 18 Champions League matches with Julen Lopetegui, my time with Luis Milla, the third division, the promotion playoff to Segunda with Burgos, survival with Cartagena, and the promotion with Levante.

I am really looking forward to starting this new adventure, which I feel comes at the best time for me. I feel very mature and confident in what I do, filled with tremendous excitement and energy. And I am especially motivated for my coaching staff, the people, my team and above all for the club. Because Levante deserves to stay in La Liga.

We are going to fight with everything we have to achieve it.