2023-10-23 00:58:51
The telephone rings. On the other side you can hear a Uruguayan accent, nothing strange if we take into account the origin of one of the two interlocutors, but the fact is that José Luis Zalazar (October 26, 1963) has been living in Spain for 34 years. More than half of his life: “Can you believe that ABC never interviewed me when I was in Albacete?” He tells us at first, surprised.
You are right. Zalazar Father was one of the great players of the Spanish League during the nineties. He had already played for Cádiz and Espanyol, but the parakeet club, then directed by Luis Aragonés, terminated his contract and he landed in La Mancha in 1990 to join Albacete, which had just risen to the Second Division: “It was the last opportunity to consecrate myself in Spain. And it turned out well, luckily,” Zalazar recalls to this newspaper.
Goals from midfield
Between 1990 and 1996 he led that Albacete, coached by Benito Floro, who amazed Spanish football with the best successes in its octogenarian history: promotion to First Division, an unusual event until then, with two goals from Zalazar himself; five consecutive seasons in the elite, with a creditable seventh place in the 1991-92 season, in which they were just one point away from qualifying for UEFA; and a Copa del Rey semi-final in the 1994-95 campaign, in which they almost eliminated Valencia.
“How much would that midfielder of 13-14 goals be worth in this era?” says José Luis, who at that time Albacete of Primera achieved 55 goals in five seasons, many of them from direct free kicks, one of his specialties, with the squad as his usual destination. But his most memorable goal was scored against Diego, Atlético’s goalkeeper, from 54 meters: «I always doubt whether the goal I scored against Cedrún from a free kick was better or the one from the center of the field. Look, the same thing happens to me as with my son Rodrigo. I’m not sure if I like the goal he scored more for St. Pauli, which gave Schalke promotion in 2022, or the one he scored against Nuremberg in midfield that gave them the Bundesliga 2 title.
«My goal is better. It’s longer, 56 meters, and he doesn’t bounce the ball before entering the goal,” he says, laughing. Rodrigo, Braga’s midfielder since last summer, who paid five million for his signing. The Portuguese club will play tomorrow, for the first time in its history, against Real Madrid: «What seduced me about my club was its ambitious project and its participation in the Champions League. That’s why I signed until 2028,” he details.
Rodrigo is the middle of the three footballer children of Zalazar. The oldest, Kuki, plays for Córdoba, and the youngest, Mauro, in Granada’s División de Honor, already with a professional record. «I get very nervous when I see my children. On TV, worse than in the field. “Sometimes it happens that I’m seeing one in the stadium and on the iPad I see another.”
The Zalazar family, in full abc
“He gives us very good advice, always so that we can improve and we try to learn from him, but he is very tiresome,” says Rodrigo. “If they play badly, I’m critical and I get annoying, yes, but when they play well it comes from within me to praise them,” the father defends himself. Better than him, no one knows what Rodrigo had to suffer to become a professional: «he left home in 2013, when he was only 14 years old. They took him from Albacete, where he was a cannon. I didn’t want to, but since Kuki was in the Málaga They brought him here. And it turns out that they barely even put him on. Furthermore, they had him without playing in his last year (2018-2019), when he was already on the reserve squad, because we did not want to renew. They made him run around the training field, away from his teammates. So he worked out in the afternoons with a personal trainer, which I paid for him. Him until he left for Germany in 2019 »
The weight of the surname always has a double side in football. Rodrigo He suffered, at times, the ugly one: «There were comparisons and people told me that I was there for my father. When you are a child you suffer, but when you are an adult and have things clear, everything that people say to hurt you no longer affects you. Now I have it clear. If they talk about me it’s because I’m doing something well,” explains the Braga player.
In Germany he entered professional adulthood and became an idol at St. Pauli and Schalke. Furthermore, personally, he met his wife, German, with whom he already has a son, whose name is Thiago by Alcantara, the former Barça and Bayern player, now at Liverpool. «In the Bundesliga I learned from great players and coaches. “I am a very competitive player, a winner,” he explains while revealing his peculiar and unexpected idol: “My reference was Bruno Soriano, who was a Villarreal player. “What I loved about him was that he did everything well and was a very practical footballer.” «To me, Rodrigo reminds me of Mikel Merino. He has a lot of movement, good ball hitting, both short and long, he is hardworking… he is a modern midfielder,” says his father.
Uruguayan national team
Zalazar is very concerned about Rodrigo not lifting his feet off the ground. That was his main mission during his Teutonic adventure: «When a slap on the wrist was necessary, of course there was one. I have always told him that he should be grateful for the life he has and that he should respect football, his profession. Humility and work. There is no more secret. At the age of 22 he became the figure of Schalke, scoring the promotion goal and also the one that proclaimed him Bundesliga 2 champion. So I dedicated myself to emphasizing him to never stop smiling at the fans, to take photos with the children, to never put on a bad face… When I give advice to my children because I have lived it and felt it, and that is how I pass it on to them. “I think they are on the right path.”
Zalazar also experienced what it means to defend his country’s shirt. He was international for Uruguay in forty games, a figure that he hopes to equal and surpass his son, who chose the light blue shirt, despite having been born and always lived in Spain. «When I was little I already told my father that I would play for Uruguay. He wanted to give her that joy. And that’s what I’ve done,” says Rodrigo, who in 2019, with the U-20 team, achieved third place in the South American Championship in that category. Last June he debuted with the senior team, already with Bielsa to the controls.
Promising present and future ahead Rodrigo, who like every kid his age has grown up in a digital world in which watching videos of his father, and any other footballers, is just a click away. But that doesn’t mean he does it: “I play my videos, not my father’s. “I’m better than my father,” says Rodrigo, laughing. “Let’s see. They were different times. Maybe I wouldn’t have played in his time and he wouldn’t have played in mine either, but I’m better,” he insists.
Raise crows that will put your eyes out, what we say in Spain: «You don’t know well (laughs). Yes, when he scored the midfield goal, he called me and the first thing he told me was ‘I’ve surpassed you’. But he is my son, and what he says matters to me. I like that he is brave and ambitious, and that he has personality. “These are things that come from the factory,” says Zalazar, a proud father.
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