Juan Ferrando: “They accepted us like Argentina”

Juan Fernando (Barcelona, ​​1981) just won the Indian Super League as manager of ATK Mohun Bagan, the first championship achieved by said team under this name. Another experience for a coach used to challenges.

From his start in Spain or England (after his time as a player due to injury) to his stages in Greece (where he led the Volos de Tercera and Primera) and now in India, where before ATK Mohun Bagan handled Goa. Going through his act of getting Sheriff Tiraspol in the group stage of the Europa League, paving the way for a team that, already in the ‘post Ferrando’ era, came to beat Real Madrid at Santiago Bernabeu in the 2021-22 Champions League (1-2).

They were declared champions on penalties on March 18 against Bengaluru. How did your fans in Calcutta experience this league title?

This is something incredible. For fans of a team like us, with 130 years of history, getting a top-level title is very important. They haven’t had it in years. There has also been a very difficult time with covid for the whole society and also for football. In sports, in recent years the goals have not been met. When we arrived in Calcutta, after winning the final, between 70,000 and 80,000 people met us at the airport. Those who moved made an 8-hour flight. About 50,000 joined us on the journey along the highway to present the trophy to the club president, Sanjiv Goenka. It took us a few hours to get there. The sensation was like the arrival of Argentina after becoming world champions. crazy

In a career as varied as yours, what does this phase mean to Indian football and what do you bring to it?

Here you have to grow yourself and mature your ideas in a different way than when you coach a team in Spain, for example, where, because of the language, everything is easier. Most of the team speaks Bengali. But this is also due to a methodological issue, because many players do not follow the same methodological process as here in the academies. You have to try to plant an idea and at the same time train the players. And, of course, also trying to get a return on them, it is necessary to achieve results.

Is this the big success of your career?

This season we stayed in the semifinals of the AFC Cup, which is like the Europa League, and on a personal level it has a bitter aftertaste. We played at home against Kuala Lumpur (1-3) and we had the illusion of reaching the final. But now by winning this title we have the option to play it again, to enter the Champions League, if we get through the playoffs and then we are first in the group, and try to do something more important at the Asian level , although it is very difficult. We think more about ambition for the future than enjoying today.

What was your best experience so far?

I have positives in everything. It’s about continuing to grow, to continue to have projects like this with ambition, not just titles, to create a team in one or two years, training players and achieving things in an international level.

And the worst?

It’s hard, you learn from everything. Maybe two seasons in a bubble, no audience during the pandemic in Goa, already in India. All the games on the same field, we only see each other’s faces every day with the players, without family contact. It seems you are the only one living on earth. Without TV or internet, I think we would have gone crazy in that league.

Are you planning to train in Spanish football?

By choice? (laughs). You consider everything, everything that has an exciting project behind it, a really football project, it’s always good and you appreciate it. You’re obviously excited when you’re home. The language, every day, the method is easier. But many times you can’t choose what you want but what is there. I don’t lead anything, but the main idea is to go where there are football projects.