The secrets of the silent Jordi Ribera: "When he came to the national team we had to decipher him"

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30 years ago,

gathered his players in front of a computer at the Canarian Gáldar and began to explain to them on the screen, with circles and arrows, how the opponent played.

This was really new.

“At that time everything was done on paper.

Jordi himself gave us lengthy reports on a thousand things.

I still keep some, like one in which I explained the game of Mateo Garralda, the benchmark at that time in my position.

But he wanted to be up to date and he spent half his salary on software, on analysis programs, on tools to help us.

He was advanced », recalls

, his player in the mid-90s and today the coach of the Hungarian Gyori ETO, who proposes a definition of Ribera that everyone who knows him repeats.

«He is a scholar, he dedicates 24 hours a day to handball, it is his lifestyle.

But perhaps his greatest virtue is that he is a nonconformist.

For me that is the difference.

Scouting is done in all the teams, today it is the norm, but he does not stay only in the attacks or the defenses, he analyzes every last detail that can improve the performance of his player, "says Martín about a coach who It is already the history of Spanish handball.

Bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, the two consecutive Europeans and the last two World Cup semifinals.

If this Friday the team beats Denmark (6:00 p.m., Teledeporte), even more so if they win the final on Sunday, they will be ahead of

or

in the books.

Another thing will be the streets, even the stands.

Few Spaniards would be able to say who the current handball coach is and fewer, many fewer, would recognize Ribera if they came across him.

His silence, his discretion and his tranquility are part of his method.

He is not the protagonist even when they focus on him.

Adam WarzawaEFE

In the two overtimes of the quarters against Norway, when hearts were pounding, he called a timeout, took out the blackboard and calmly detailed the next play.

No harangues.

«In those moments you don't need to be yelled at.

You already go to a thousand.

It is good for you that the coach explains to you calmly, that he calms you down, that he makes you see that he has everything under control.

When he came to the national team we had to figure it out, but now we know him and we know what he thinks at all times, "says Gideon Guardiola at the Mercure Posejdon Gdansk hotel, where this Thursday, of course, fatigue weighed heavily.

This Friday should be something else.

The signed blackboard

Guardiola himself was the protagonist of one of those anecdotes that define Ribera.

In 2018, in full celebration of the first European in the history of Spain in the halls of the Arena Zagreb, the coach was busy asking his pupils to sign the board.

It was a memory, of course, but also a recognition: so much work, so much analysis, it is useless without the success of those who play.

“He has enormous respect for the players and they notice it.

For example, he never gets involved in what they do in the concentrations in their spare time, because he considers that they are professionals, that they already know what they should do.

With the work he does, he earns his trust, because he puts in many hours, and the rest he does with respect," says coach

, who was his assistant at Ademar de León, on the long road that has led to Shore where it is.

JANEK SKARZYNSKIAFP

Born 59 years ago in Sarrià de Ter, a town of 5,000 inhabitants near Girona, since he was little he played for the local club, with a long tradition, today in the First National, but he never stood out.

Quite the opposite.

As a teenager he already knew that his thing would be to train.

And at the age of 23 he was already managing the Sarrià first team and the lower categories of the Catalan team.

From there he made himself known outside the home, from there he received the call from Arrate and from there he made his debut in Asobal as a coach at only 26 years old.

Then would come a glorious time at Gáldar, shorter steps for Ademar and the Argentina team, and a huge project: Brazil.

With the Rio 2016 Games on the horizon, he planted himself in a country that knew nothing about handball and built a structure there with hundreds of trips to the clubs to discover, to teach, to promote.

The Brazilian quarterfinals in those Games were his merit.

And then, in 2016, the call came from Spain, where he has already made history.

Innovation, work and serenity.

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• Articles Javier Sanchez