“Since I was convinced, he seems to me to be a soccer worker.” Pablo Longoria appreciates Domingo Catoria like few others. The now president of Marseille, the youngest in the major European leagues, coincided for a year and a half during his time at Valencia with the new sports director of Espanyol. He did not know him, but after that their relationship has been maintained over time. Longoria sent Catoira, then a scout, but, as he himself says, he had to promote him: “He had a high level, a lot of sensitivity. He made very good decisions”, he explains to La Vanguardia.
Catoira and Longoria still call each other at least once a month, so when she heard the news, she was happy. “Because I think he deserves it, he is totally prepared and really if he can impose everything he has in his head, because he is very logical, he has the personality to be able to develop a project”, Longoria made clear
The parakeet fan has before him a sports director whose best virtue is, according to Longoria, to be “a specialist in the selection of players.” “I have not worked with Rufete, but he is a person who gives importance to methodology, training, because he has been a coach and a player. But it is an external opinion”, said the Frenchman. In addition, he highlights that he “has a great capacity to adapt to the coach’s profiles and is a hard worker and has a very strong personality, and that is necessary for this position,” he points out.
Longoria does not hesitate to highlight that Catoira helped him “a lot” in his “career”. “He made me learn a lot as a collaborator. He has a very clear vision that helps you get your head in order. Now that he has to make decisions and his head is very structured. He is a very logical and consistent person”, he highlights.
The first and most important mission of Catoria will be the election of the new coach. Without going into considerations of names or styles, Longoria is clear that “working with the intelligence that he has, he will be studying all the profiles of coaches that have worked and the type of football that has worked at Espanyol”. The president of Marseille highlights that the player from Vigo knows that “each club has its own culture and idiosyncrasy. He has that reading when it comes to knowing how to start a project. It is a great opportunity for him. He will know how to study the history of the club to adapt to its culture, ”he summed up.
Finally, Longoria considers that one of Catoira’s greatest potentialities is emotional intelligence “when choosing the moment to transmit a message or analyze psychological situations within a group.” In his opinion, this is “a very important quality when talking to different players. Domingo has that sensitivity to know how to choose the right moment and know how to read the natural tendency within a group”, he concludes.
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