The Colombian coach Francisco “Pacho” Maturana believe that “motivation” is the key to high level that James Rodríguez offered with his national team as opposed to the secondary role he plays at his club, Rayo Vallecano.
“Motivation is achieved when you find the right word to say something to the player. We all have something that moves us and James whenever the Colombian team calls him he played well because he had a responsibility to someone who believed in him,” he emphasizes. Maturana in an interview given to EFE.
The former coach of the 2001 Copa América champion coffee team is in Bilbao to participate tomorrow, Wednesday, in the discussion after the screening of the film “Colombia: Road to Glory”, by Luis Arawithin the ‘Thinking Football Film Festival 2024’, the exhibition of film, football and society organized by the Athletic Club Foundation.
“Sometimes James is not good with his teams The coach of the national team will talk to him personally. That is one way of understanding motivation because motivation is sometimes confused with animation. We all have something that moves us, that makes us better and that’s not in the books, we have to discover it from the knowledge of the player,” he reflected.
“The qualifiers are a fantastic stage to qualify and build your team for the World Cup. The World Cup is in two years. Will James be two years old? I don’t know if his body will last long because the selection is 15-20 days and it’s always a club. So if you are out of shape in a club, you are unlikely to be in shape in a national team,” added the coach.
Lillo and Guardiola
On the other hand, Maturana praises the figure of Juanma Lillo, assistant technician Pep Guardiola at Manchester City and a personal friend of the Colombian coach since his time at Real Valladolid at the beginning of the 90s of the last century.
“Lillo is part of my strength. He gave me a very special position in his life and I always understood that friends are for life and especially when those friends can help you become better through confrontation and analysis. We are united by football, but the human condition unites us more,” he highlights.
Maturana considers the Guipuzcoan coach as a “very respectful” person who is “not there to be told what to do” to Guardiola, but so that the Catalan “asks him when he is in trouble.”
“I believe,” he added, “that’s the relationship between the two. Sometimes Guardiola has doubts as a coach And if I have someone I know will talk to me from the heart and I trust them, I will ask them. J.uanma won’t tell Pep to ‘do it’, but Pep will If he had the full confidence to tell Juanma ‘I have a problem, what do you think?’
The Choco coach, finally, claimed to have “total admiration for all” soccer coaches because “they all have something to teach” and therefore avoided making comparisons, although he is clear that “the model of the game is not the coaches’ “It belongs to the players.”
“Mourinho or Pep go anywhere and whatever they ask, they bring to them. But if not, that’s where I value the coaches. See what he does with what he has. The coach must be smart enough to find collaborations between the players present,” he explained.
“In Uruguay, they say that a coach trains, like he studies, every day, every eight days he takes a test and doesn’t finish. You just won the Copa Libertadores, everyone around you have the right to have a few drinks to celebrate. , but “You think about the game for three days because if things don’t go well you’re asking them to throw you out too. That’s the reality of being a coach, making others happy,” he reflected. Maturana
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
