To participate this Thursday in Foros de Vanguardia, Juan Carlos Unzué chose a green jersey, the color that is associated with hope. It may have been coincidental or it may not have been sought after. But what is undeniable is that every time the former professional goalkeeper and former soccer coach decides to expose his life experience and his way of facing ALS, it ends up being a hymn to the enthusiasm for living and a breath of optimism, without forgetting the demand . “I don’t feel like I’m doing anything special. I still feel like Juan Carlos Unzué. What I am claiming is not for me, but for all those affected. “I am working as a team,” he reveals about the spokesperson role he has taken to give visibility to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

At 56 years old, the Navarrese admits that the support and response of society is his greatest driving force. “Not once have I thought, why me? There is a magic word: accept. I accepted the diagnosis that I could no longer change and decided to change the meaning of my life. But I never thought I would receive the love and respect that I am receiving. I am overwhelmed when they tell me: ‘I thank you because I was having a bad time and you helped me.’ That is pure energy,” he confesses. “I had enjoyed a lot in my life but I had never had the feeling of gratitude that I am experiencing now,” says an athlete who played 17 years in First Division, who worked in the technical teams of Rijkaard, Guardiola and Luis Enrique, and who alone directed to Numancia, Celta and Girona.

His description of the disease is cruel – there is no cure, it is neurodegenerative and has a life expectancy of three to five years – not to cause pity, but because he wants to raise awareness that time advances inexorably for them, although in his case “Fortunately the disease progresses slowly.” In July she will have been diagnosed five years ago. Others cannot say the same.

“We are about 4,000 affected in Spain. Every day we lose three colleagues and another three join,” he highlights. On Tuesday, ALS patients go to Congress to meet with deputies with the desire that an aid law be passed once and for all. “At one point the illness leaves us immobile in a bed. We need a tracheotomy and a respirator. We cannot be alone for a minute. 95% of those affected have economic problems to survive. “I think this is not fair,” he analyzes, before leaving a sentence that overwhelms both the moderator of the event, Ramon Rovira, and the three journalists, Sergio Heredia, from La Vanguardia, Fernando Polo, from Mundo Deportivo, and Joan Lluís García, from RAC1, who is asked from the front. “It bothers me to say it but I feel privileged. Because my economic situation is not going to influence my decision to die. But there are many other cases in which yes, when they see the economic effects on their family they get out of the way.”

Unzué is in a wheelchair but is restless, as always, and this season is the second in which he acts as a DAZN commentator. “I have returned to watching football with the coach’s perspective to comment,” he explains. And he puts himself in Xavi’s shoes. “Barça is very demanding and for the coach a little more so. But impatience is not good,” he advises and he does not consider the season lost yet.

Cruyff taught him to fight, to compete, he didn’t want him to settle for being at Barça. “I wanted me to fight for the position against Zubizarreta who was 7 years older than me and was the national team’s goalkeeper.” And another Navarrese, like José Mari Bakero, who took the stage, admires the mentality of his former teammate. “We were -5º in Moscow and Johan told us: “Everything is mental.” That is why I highlight the mentality of living through illness and loneliness that Unzué has,” he gave her.

After two documentaries, Vivir vale la pena (Movistar) and L’últim equip del Juancar (TV3), awarded with an Ondas, a book, Unzué, una vida plena, a friendly match that raised 4.3 million at the Camp Nou and several television programs that have accompanied him in this phase of the disease, the truth is that Unzué still has a lot to say and several life lessons to give.