Robert Moreno: "The selection was an apprenticeship, I have erased everything bad"

• Opinion.The most desired return in the most unwanted way

• History: divorces and betrayals on the benches

Robert Moreno (Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1977) could talk about football until the recorder's battery ran out.

His overflowing enthusiasm and eloquent educational eagerness come intact from Milan, where he has settled after his brief stint at Monaco.

In a few days it will be a year since his last game with Spain.

After this time, do you regret anything? No, no, no, no.

During the last press conference as coach they told me to write a note and I said that a

10. I don't know if it was perceived as something arrogant, but I meant that he had given everything.

Surely I could have done better or worse, but I left everything I had inside, I couldn't dedicate more hours to it.

It was the third time in history that during qualifying for a major tournament, no match was lost.

I am very proud of what I did.

I was entrusted with a very complicated task and we fully accomplished it, playing well, qualifying without haste and with people plugged in.

Does nostalgia for the good outweigh sadness for the bad?

It is not nostalgia, but the resource, very human, to erase everything bad.

It was an apprenticeship for the next stage.

I remember everything good, everything I learned, the affection of many people and the players.

Of course, I always do self-criticism, but I try to keep it to myself, because with whatever negative thing you say they take out a headline and that is the label that remains.

After your dismissal at Monaco, how do you face the future?

I want to be a coach for 10-15 years.

I am fortunate, because I do what I like, what I wanted to do all my life.

I am competitive, I try to do my best.

Like anyone in her life, because I don't know anyone who wants to get worse.

Everybody wants to always have a higher level.

It is human, it is what makes us survive.

What I always pursue is to try to be better.

My main competition is against myself.

Be better today than yesterday.

To be a better coach, a better father, a better husband, a better person.

By word everyone is allowed to give advice, but then you have to put it on the green.

Green is what puts us all in our place.

What speaks for you, what represents you, is not what you say, but how you act.

And how did you act?

In the national team you have a very limited space, but my strength was and continues to be tactics.

My background, my influence was trying to help get the best out of each player in a coordinated way, with a collective idea.

His best game, perhaps, was 1-2 against Romania ...

I am very proud of what we saw that day, because everything we had talked about came out.

I really enjoyed how the players were able to coordinate at that speed and cover the spaces both in attack and defense.

The Spanish model has not been exhausted, but the rivals learned.

Now you have to play faster.

You always talk about the occupation of spaces.

The football that can approach success with the greatest guarantees is that based on mastering spaces.

And not only today and now, but we also saw it in the past and we will see it in the future.

A football where the tactic is at the service of the players and not the other way around.

It is a purposeful, not reactive style.

A style that wants to be the protagonist and not that it can only create based on the adversary.

This model triumphed during the last final phase of the Champions League.

With their differences, which are evident, Bayern, Leipzig and Atalanta assume this propositional style.

Also, they are aggressive through defense, which is another way of attacking.

Their idea is to take the ball from you high up, because they want to be close to the rival goal and hurt you there.

The germ of all of them, in some way, was Liverpool.

I think so, although in the last 20 years, in the Premier there were also strong teams that played fast that then did not achieve anything in Europe.

I want to see Liverpool this season, after having won the Champions League and Premier.

Because when you win it is very difficult to win again.

Very difficult.

You lose the illusion, that desire to get up before the rest, to run a little more. You cannot win again if you repeat the project with the same coach and do not renew the players.

Real Madrid did dominate the Champions League and is now debating in a rebuilding process.

You have to be very brave for it.

Florentino Pérez must face a very unpopular decision: to remove the players who won and change them for others.

You have to master the spaces and have a style with which to be the protagonist.

Has that way of understanding the game that led Spanish football, both at the national team and at the club level, to the top become obsolete?

I don't think it's sold out.

The problem is that we have been around for many years and the rivals have adapted, they have learned to counteract it.

That football so based on quality has to be done faster and faster today.

And I give you an example.

We all know very well the pass that Leo Messi gives to Jordi Alba.

Yet they continue to do so.

Why?

Because they do it at the right speed, at the right time, which makes it unstoppable.

The game at the foot was a means to an end: to generate spaces in other places and to be able to attack them.

Maintaining the essence of that game is possible, but you need footballers of the highest technical quality, starting with the goalkeeper.

In addition, it requires a great tactical wealth from the coach and a training style that you can only achieve with the passage of time.

The successes of Barça and the national team were the consequence of many years of work.

They did not arise overnight.

What will have to be done to dominate the Champions League in the future?

I do not know.

What I can guarantee you is what not to do.

You cannot sign players who go against the idea of ​​the club, or stumble, changing a coach every four games.

I don't think one style will predominate, but you do need work, continuity and professionalism in all areas: technical secretariat, medical staff, managers ... In addition, the coach must undergo continuous training in order to be ahead of the rest.

Many become obsessed with their system and do not get out of there, but in my understanding, training is adapting.

In Hansi Flick's Bayern I see things that I already saw in Guardiola.

And he hasn't stopped doing them because Pep did them.

How do Bavarians stand out above the rest?

In the first place, we cannot forget that they have had to wait seven years to win the Champions League.

And for this they had to renew their staff.

From here I see Franck Ribery at Fiorentina every week.

He has not retired, but Bayern told him that he had to go and make room for footballers like Kingsley Coman or Corentin Tolisso, whom they did not want in France or Italy.

Flick has been able to establish game dynamics that allow them to play at that speed and reach the auction.

After reviewing his game against Atlético you realize his incredible ability to occupy spaces and exchange positions.

In that respect it is far superior to most European teams.

In addition, they have a strong management structure, led by former players.

When they see that a coach doesn't work, they change it.

And they did so with Nico Kovac, despite the fact that he had made them champions of the Bundesliga.

The important thing for a coach is to be genuine and not someone who copies

Who do you consider the most influential coach in football today?

It's hard for me to choose, because I don't think it's just one.

It seems to me that there are schools or styles, created by people who are not always recognized.

In any case, right now I could name Jürgen Klopp or Pep Guardiola, but I don't want to forget someone like Diego Martínez, who has shown at Granada that with seriousness, work and continuity you can do something great.

Pep always tries to change things, evolve, although without modifying his style, short and associative.

For this you need tactical wealth, interact with the players to extract new advantages.

And if you don't, you will end up falling.

The important thing is to be genuine and not someone who copies.

Have your style, defend it and try to seek success.

What is essential is the ability to adapt and change.

And on a personal level, what were your references?

From Johan Cruyff to Louis van Gaal, whose work I was fortunate to know from the inside.

I also discovered very interesting things in Frank Rikjaard and José Mourinho.

However, you almost always look at whoever wins and that is unfair.

Marcelo Bielsa, who has not won a title, is also very influential.

It has shown that with something so contrary to my way of thinking, like man-to-man brands all over the field, you can have great results.

It looks like old football, but it's like flared or skinny pants, which always come back.

I love Bielsa for what she communicates, what she says.

Their answers have content and are not the classic wild card.

He doesn't think the microphones represent an enemy who wants to destroy you.

Whoever thinks that makes himself small and shows his little capacity to defend his arguments.

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