Together with the masseuse and the delegate, the “men of the house” are the last Mohicans of yesterday’s football. RCD Espanyol has chosen to resort to a man of the house sui generis, Luis GarcÃa –sui generis because he trained in football from the academy… of Real Madrid–. Come on, it’s not Pepe Mauri or Luis Molowny, dedicated and wise firefighters who were assigned transitory and brown periods in their respective houses (RCD Espanyol and Real Madrid).
Inexperienced and like Mauricio Pochettino -another neophyte who felt the colors-, Luis GarcÃa comes to save a team that in Girona transmitted some of the symptoms of a death: a bit of bad luck, a terrible game, reproaches between players and technical decisions that convey insanity (the change of Denis Suárez, humiliated by being substituted half an hour after jumping onto the pitch). Diego MartÃnez is a good trainer, but it is not enough to be a good trainer, in the same way that the captain of the Titanic was a great sailor, but the ship sank…
The bet for Luis GarcÃa is less risky than it seems and more beautiful than it does not seem. Both he and the club are covered in health if the adventure ends badly: the team was already in the relegation position (finishing worse is impossible). The nice side of the matter? That the grit, the pride -a concept of the 20th century- and leaving the skin on the field can save a team whose football is not enough to get out of the hole. It is not about that cliché of “we are going to continue workingâ€, to which all the defeated routinely appeal, because, from the outset, a football game is not a working day. It is something else. When technology, statistics and performance indices are part of football’s day-to-day life, it is gratifying – pure air – that a coach appeals, above all, to emotions to reverse the situation. The state of mind…
The replacement on the bench seems opportune. It’s the last bullet. There is no time for big changes or tactical strategies except for one, the most decisive: soaking up the fighting spirit of the coach. That is something that can be assumed at the first exchange, unlike tactical revolutions. Luis GarcÃa belongs to that very Asturian school of footballers with claws, perhaps terrible when it comes to speaking to the press, but ideal for their players to run and put their foot in.
The difficulty is time. Either there is a revulsive effect in the first two games –Athletic visit and trip to Seville (Betis)–, or things will look very bad. This is what electrical effects have: either you revive instantly, or bye-bye, very good.
