How to address a selection of “drinkers and smokers”

The Spanish Felipe Vega-Arango is the national coach of Solomon Islands, the country where he first arrived to develop football in the hands of LaLiga, and where he has a contract until 2024 after being promoted from position 180 to 134 in less than a year in the FIFA rankinga task that he does in preliminary conditions, without a physical trainer or goalkeeping coach, and with players who do not take care of their diet, and also smoke and drink.

Vega-Arango arrived in the Solomon Islands in 2017 at the hands of LaLiga no technical director and now in the second stage he did it independently train the national team and assume the direction of high performance, tasks that are quite “different”, since the current one is more focused on national teams while before it was more focused on the development of soccer in the country.

In the qualifying phase for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and for Qatar 2022, the Spanish the Solomon Islands senior team qualified for the Oceania final, they lost to New Zealand on both occasions, making him the only manager in the country’s history to qualify the national team to two finals.

“What I liked the most was the qualified U-17 team to play the 2019 World Cup in Brazil, which A catch“said the coach, who as director of the high-performance department led the women’s team for the first time in history to win a bronze medal in the Oceania Nations Cup.

“Successes are positive”said the Spaniard, who revealed that it is “not easy” to be a full-time coach in that country, where football is “bigger than religion, almost crazy” which means that if you lose a game they don’t want you in the a place where football is “very underdeveloped and rudimentary”.

“We got it Good stuff and I keep working hard and see what I can endure”, said Vega-Arango, knowing that they are in a place where they believe they have to “win all the games” and their team must “like Brazil or Spain”although they suffer from many shortcomings such as not having a goalkeeping coach or physical trainer.

The Solomon Islands national team It only has a training ground, which is “patatal”, and most of the players “they don’t go to school or don’t go to school” and their nutrition is “bad”, and they are “very poor” and “not interested in working hard either”.

“Many of the footballers are smoking and drinking but when I’m with them I don’t let them and I control them, so they complain and tell me that it should be a little. more respectful in their customs, and look the other way, so it’s an ongoing battle,” he detailed.

Vega-Arango pointed out that in his clubs “they allow it to be done“, that’s why when the players go to the national team, they pressure the coach who is “a bit of a cop”, so that when it comes to have breakfast in the hotel they have to control “what they eat”.

The Lawson Tama Stadium in the capital, Honiara, has a capacity for 22,000 fans, although it only had a very small wooden grandstand on one side and a hill on the other where the spectators sat.

The man from Gijón explained that the major leagues are played only in that stadium where the twelve teams participating in it compete, hosting three matches on Saturday and three on Sunday, which means that the pitch is “destroyed” after three days.

Vega-Arango placed the Solomon Islands as one of the countries “the hardest in the world, with an unemployment rate of 80 percent, where the internet “does terrible and very expensive”, so when the team travels abroad, the players, taking advantage of the fact that the hotels have Wi-Fi, is “connected all night” and “they don’t sleep”.

“The management of national teams is niceespecially when you are on the pitch and the anthem is playing and you see the fans”, stressed the coach, who declares himself that he likes to work with young people, and who wants to work in Spain, which is his country And where is the family you?

He disclosed that the Federation of Solomon Islands is currently going through a moment “messy” with “tense” moments because those responsible understand that the futsal team and the one he leads are not getting “ideal” results, and they both reach the final of Oceania and they lost to New Zealand, which was the best they could hope for.”

“Here football is unstableespecially with the social pressure, the country is very poor and it is very difficult to live, I have had malaria several times”, reveals Vega-Arango, who is “happy” with the work he does although he is “always open to other possibilities” and is heard your “other offers”.

“I was born a sportsman”, indicated by the current Solomon Islands coach, son of Manuel Vega-Arango, former president of the Gijon club in two periods; The first of these corresponds to the team’s most successful season (1977-1986), when they were runners-up in the Liga (1978-79), played in two Copa del Rey finals (1980-81 and 1981-82) and participated in four editions of the UEFA Cup.

From his childhood, Solomon’s coach has “good” memories, especially of that team that was “amazing, with players like Quini, Ferrero, Mesa, Joaquin, which is good to see because of the way he competes”, and other “ugly ones”, like when Sporting lost 2-1 to Real Madrid at home, where the public invented the chant “like this, like this, win the Madrid” after a controversial refereeing performance at El Molinón in 1979.