Quarantines, isolations and fight for permanence in a Chinese Super League that has kept the checkbook.
This is how Rafa Benítez has lived this 2020 from the epicenter of the pandemic, focused on making the Chinese footballer progress from the Dalian Pro and looking askance at Europe in a season that is going to be "very rare."
What has it been like to train in the heart of the pandemic? Difficult.
When it was finally decided to start the championship, the Super League was divided into two groups and we got into a bur
spark plug in the Olympic city of Dalian.
Nobody could get out of there and we played in the same three fields every game.
We had PCR controls every three days and if, for example, you had to incorporate a player due to an injury, you had to make two negatives in three days and always be under control.
Was there no contagion?
No, in China there are very few because they have an exhaustive control.
There are cities where, for one case, 183 people have been isolated and quarantined in a room without leaving.
I had to make one in which I wore a bracelet that controlled if I moved.
How did they handle the isolation psychologically?
It is not an easy situation.
We tried to keep them in touch with the family and give them training and activities to fill the time they spent in the rooms.
It surprises me that people make football evaluations in a situation like this, in which there has been no preseason, there are injuries, where you spend hours in a room alone and then you have to give up ... You have to do a more careful analysis.
This argument is valid for the leagues in Europe
Of course.
There has been a bad preseason, bad working conditions and many players will have passed the virus and can have side effects.
Ultimately that affects performance.
Even the emotional factor of being locked up at home for a while and then going back to playing as well as before.
That is not easy for anyone, not in an office or in a stadium.
The five changes came to alleviate that lack of preparation
I am very clear that three changes are enough, the rest is to stop the game and they are a factor of imbalance that gives the greats an advantage.
In the teams with the best squads, the fourth and fifth substitutes can have a lot of impact: two fresh players and more unbalanced than those of the opposite, who could have held you physically, but it is more difficult for them to do so technically.
Has the austerity caused by the Covid reached Chinese football?
Yes too.
The economic capacity to improve equipment is now less.
There is a big difference between the first level foreign players who came and those who are arriving now, because the maximum transfer is five million, or you pay luxury tax, and the salary is three million net, when before there was no limit.
You have gone from being able to have players who earned ten million net and looking for three others.
That to change the life of a professional is a limitation.
Then there are the rules.
You can only sign five senior Chinese players to a squad and since they don't have grassroots football under the age of 13, finding them with a high technical-tactical level is not easy.
The best are in the big teams and they don't let them go because they know there isn't any on the market.
That's why changing the face of a team that is very complicated.
You can only do it by working hard, but since they don't have the foundations that Europeans have, the improvement process takes longer.
He is working on that path, will it be his legacy?
The idea was to improve the entire structure with a methodology that went from grassroots football to the professional team.
The Dalian Pro project, which is that of the Wanda company, was very ambitious, with a sports city that cost 250 million, with 14 fields of natural grass, two with artificial grass and covered for the winter, and five buildings with residence, restaurants, gyms, swimming pool ... for all the grassroots football they want to promote.
In China it was not played until the age of 13 and now, with this project, from six to 21 they make schooling compatible with training, with Spanish methodology.
That and the possibility of making the first team more competitive was attractive to us at a time when there wasn't a project in Europe that seemed like it to us.
The change in the Super League rules and the economic limitations of the Covid will delay progress and physical, technical and tactical advances are being minor.
Have they also had to help the owners understand football?
No. In the case of Wanda, they are very football fans, they have been shareholders of Atlético and give the stadium its name.
The owner, Mr. Wang, is passionate about soccer and Dalian is a team that has historically won titles in China until Guangzhou Evergrande came along and invested a lot more money and started winning.
They are passionate about European and Spanish football, and they have children training in the quarries of Villarreal, Celta, Real Sociedad and Atlético. It is a job that we are also focusing on the coaches.
We train Chinese coaches to understand football, acquire the knowledge to interpret it and transmit it.
Because it is very difficult to transmit the passion, the tension or the small details that change a game through a translator permanently.
Let's go back to Europe, do you see rival Liverpool in the Premier or Atlético in LaLiga?
One of the attractive features of leagues is that they last nine months.
Now a team can be very well and if it fails a couple of games, the dynamics change.
We are going to wait, because in February the Champions League will return and we will see the impact that the depth of the squads can have ... It is clear that they are strong, but there are teams that can reach the end with the ability to fight.
It's going to be a weird year.
Which team is surprising you the most?
Bayern are doing very well.
It maintains the intensity, the structure, the order, it is ambitious ... It has always been the strongest in Germany but in Europe it is also being.
It is surprising that between teams such as Real Madrid, PSG, Barcelona, Liverpool or City he gets in with such authority.
If I had to sign, Haaland or Mbappé?
For the Dalian Pro?
Either one [laughs].
I think it depends on the characteristics of the team.
Decanting is not fair or smart.
They are both very good.
It depends on whether they are looking for a band man or a striker.
And for Real Madrid?
I can't go in there.
Many benches are occupied by former footballers with little experience, is it a fad?
I think so.
Elite football has nothing to do with the elite footballer.
The coach has to have the ability to manage a group of 25 or more people, each with their own interests, and has to compete, manage the social environment and win.
Being a soccer player concerned about training and playing well is not the same as managing egos and an environment that can be even hostile.
We look at the success stories, there are, but 80% of those who start and believe they have that advantage end up staying.
Being a former player does not give an advantage to train.
It often happens that teams end up turning to a technician with experience in making important decisions, in changing rooms, environment, representatives.
If there is no experience, the club has to cover them a lot.
The other day I was talking about Pirlo: in a strong club with an environment that wraps him up a lot, he has a better chance of succeeding because he has great players behind him.
But they face the stands ...
People want young coaches, who play on the attack and from behind.
I watch City and, as it always does, 80% of the time it will turn out well.
But then I have seen another elite team, with a very good poster but I will not say the name, who in the first half gave 20 balls to the rival in their own field.
That means that the fashion of the coach with a proactive football is very good, but you have to look for effectiveness.
You have a better chance of winning by playing well, certainly, but let's not forget that you have to win, and that there are many ways to do it.
Do you see yourself close to returning to Europe?
I have one more year on my contract and we are trying to improve the team.
In addition, I am working with my coaching staff on how to reach Chinese footballers, who can start playing without having the basic concepts acquired.
We look for how to reach them and how to do it without speaking their language, with images, videos ... but not so that they learn how to play through repetitions, but to try to make them understand what we are looking for with each movement and help them in making decisions, because it is the only way to make them improve.
They have to understand when to change the game because they are squeezing you, when to take three back passes to dislodge the opponent or when to pass the long ball looking for a second play.
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