Aubameyang's adventure with Camacho in Gabon: "Mister, I don't drink anything here. I don't trust it"

• Barça Xavi, before the "war" in Naples: "This is about results, not sensations"

Barcelona will play this Thursday the pass to the round of 16 of the Europa League at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, former San Paolo in Naples.

After 1-1 in the first leg and a 1-4 league win at Mestalla in which

(Laval, France, 1989) scored three goals, Xavi Hernández's team faces continental exile with a little more optimism.

And with the feeling that he already has a finisher to match.

Strange things have happened to José Antonio Camacho in

football

And some as unpleasant as the one he had to live in Marrakech during his time as coach of Gabon, where Aubameyang was the captain.

Qualification for the 2018 World Cup was at stake. Gabon lost 3-0 to Morocco.

And that dream went to hell.

"

", resolves the former Spanish coach remembering that episode in conversation with EL MUNDO.

"I think the orange juice they gave us was

. I don't usually drink it, but that day I tried it and I spent the whole morning in the bathroom. Also my assistants, the goalkeepers, and more than half the team.

. I don't trust him.' He didn't even come close. We had to go eat far from there, downtown. They had already made us train in a field where they never painted our faces on any day. lines. They also didn't let us train with the official ball... You know, strange things".

Connection with Laporta

Camacho did not have much time to become intimate with Aubameyang beyond that unique experience and the time shared in concentrations while he endured on the African bench (between December 2016 and September 2018).

, middle son of the president of Barcelona,

​​participated in that adventure .

"He was not part of the coaching staff itself. He had it as a French interpreter," Camacho specifies.

The connections with the Barcelona environment were multiple.

, brother-in-law of Joan Laporta, and

, who was his electoral dauphin once his first presidential term ended, had established a good relationship with the Gabonese government when the former French colony tried to professionalize its football.

up a training center in Libreville, and also mediated for

to visit the country in 2015. The president of Gabon,

, took the Argentine for a ride in his official car, stuffed in holey shorts before the opposition outrage.

"When I arrived in Gabon, Aubameyang was already the captain. He was a very correct boy, very friendly, a very good companion.

," continues Camacho.

That same feeling is what he has left in his first days in Barcelona, ​​where he drives a

black

His 'little brother' Dembélé

Auba

-as he likes to be called-, based on his good humor, is trying to expand his circle of friends beyond

.

He is the French winger, his "little brother" since they coincided at

.

In Germany they still remember when Aubameyang, that January 2018 in which he forced his sale to Arsenal for

, set up a pachanga in a pavilion with some friends while his team played an official match against

.

Aubameyang didn't don one of his Marvel masks, heroes he idolizes.

He but Dembélé's shirt.

"Aubameyang is a good boy, but you never know what goes through his head," his former partner

.

"Sorry, I'm crazy," said the forward of the Yellow Wall of Signal Iduna Park.

"He never had any problems with me. He was always correct. And it shows that he likes to train. That what he likes is football," says Camacho, who prefers not to investigate the reasons why

, Arsenal coach, told him stripped him of the captaincy and allowed Barcelona to sign him minutes before the closing of the winter market.

It was the night that Joan Laporta left the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper in ecstasy and with his fist raised.

Aubameyang's integration is being accelerated.

He is looking for a house in

, where his father already bought one a few years ago.

And he speaks perfect Spanish given his origins.

His maternal grandparents are from

, where cycling legends such as

,

or

learned to work hard on the hard slopes of Avila.

They emigrated to France (Laval) together with his little daughter,

, who would end up falling in love with a former Stade Lavallois center-back and Gabon international,

.

The three children of that relationship were all soccer players:

,

(who has a Champions with Milan despite having played only five minutes with the

in that 2002-03 season) and Pierre-Emerick, by far the most successful of all.

In the 583 official matches of his career he has scored 298 goals.

The last three were the first with the Barcelona shirt.

In Mestalla he rehearsed that somersault with which he imitates the old celebrations of

with Real Madrid.

His great idol, he remembers just in case, was always

.

Camacho does not venture into predicting future successes, but he does warn of the importance of Aubameyang in the present: "He is a goalscorer. He will always have chances because he has something inside the area. Also, if you let him meters, he is very fast and effective. Everyone teams need someone like that. And he is a special footballer."

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Know more

• Ousmane Dembele

• Joan Laporta

• Xavi Hernandez

• FC Barcelona

FútbolXavi beats Laporta for Dembélé: "But what can we do with him?"

SoccerBarcelona chooses Aubameyang

Europa LeagueThe bad memory of Barça in UEFA and the night he had to play hours after the 11-M attacks

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