2023-09-22 04:15:00
Faustino Villamarin is another of the products of the profuse pool of players trained at the Corazón de María school in Gijón. He was one of the first internationals and played for what were at that time the two most important clubs in Spanish handball, Atlético de Madrid and Barcelona, the city where he ended up settling and where he continues to live.
–It is striking that he retired while he was still very young.
–I retired in 1978 although I had two more years on my contract at Barcelona. I was young and I could have continued playing, but it was a time when it was considered starting to train morning and afternoon and I had already looked for a job in a bank, which prevented me from doing two training sessions. It was also a complicated year because there were elections for the presidency that Núñez won, for me the best president that Barcelona has had in its entire history. It was the year in which I was the technical director of the section. I have always had a very good relationship with Núñez after leaving handball.
–Domingo Bárcenas named the team, a true institution in national handball.
–In the national team I have always been with Domingo Bárcenas as coach. Indeed, an entire institution in handball, I think this sport owes a lot to him. He told me that he met me when he was playing for Codema. Bárcenas had Roncero as his second, that was when he began his relationship with the Spanish federation. Upon returning from one of the concentrations, Roncero showed me a play that was made that was a feint after a feint of a shot, it was a novelty at that time to the point that when I started doing it all the referees whistled for steps. Today it is a move that continues to be made. Bárcenas also specialized in handball at the INEF and a good part of the coaches who later spread successfully around the world passed through his hands.
–What do you think of this tribute to all the Asturian internationals that is being organized?
–To the players who were in Munich-72, unfortunately of the 17 of us there were only 10 left, they paid us a tribute last November; There we decided to meet once a year in different locations and Perramón proposed that this year it be in Asturias. We are scheduled for October 3rd. And then it happened that a group of people prepared this tribute and it was decided to combine the two things. I have been living in Barcelona for more than 50 years and for me that from your homeland they continue to remember you and invite you to a tribute means a lot. Being away you miss the land a lot and that is why I am very grateful to those who organize the tribute.
–How do you see handball in Asturias?
–Asturias has the same problem as the rest of the autonomous regions, money, sponsorships, but high-level players continue to emerge.
–Is there much difference between handball from your time and today?
–There is a lot of difference. Today to play handball you have to be two meters tall and weigh 120 kilos, run… the wingers are still skilled thanks to the rule that you cannot touch them, before the wingers received a lot. Now it’s not enough to just have a good goalkeeper, every club needs two. The defense-attack change is being abused a lot, because there are players who do not defend. But there is a study that says that those who make fewer changes of this type obtain better results, especially because the game is played at greater speed. I also think there should be a change in the definition of the free hit. Sometimes I watch a match with people who are not familiar with handball and there are rules that they don’t understand, handball goes badly if there are things that people don’t understand.
–They tell me that he is not very fond of competition at very young ages.
–It seems tremendous to me that a club like Barcelona, to give a name, has children’s teams competing, 12-year-old children who what they would have to do is practice various sports without the pressure of competition and that it would be later when they decide to a specific sport. I am a fan of the French school, in which up to the age of 15 they are doing various sports. I think that nowadays clubs try to catch you too early.
–Speaking of Munich-72, you experienced firsthand the terrorist attack against the Israeli delegation, what do you remember?
–We went out to have breakfast and when we arrived at the dining rooms, which were near the building where the Israel team was, that was when they told us that we could not pass. They told us that we had to leave the Olympic Village. When we returned at night we saw the terrorists being taken out by bus and the rooftops full of snipers. Then we find out what happened, how the rescue attempt failed and how the athletes were killed. There were days of great nervousness, to the point that in a game days later we were evicted due to a bomb threat.
–Sportswise, what do you remember about those Games?
–Sportswise I think we were unlucky because we had five important players missing from the starting seven and that was clearly noticeable. For me the game with the greatest pressure was not in the Games, it was the one we played against Bulgaria in the pre-Olympic because we knew that either we would win or we would be left out of the Games. Today I believe that, without the pressure we had at that time, we would have won that game much easier than we did.
Trajectory
Place and date of birth: Gijón, February 19, 1950.
Career as a player: Codema, Sporting, Atlético de Madrid and Barcelona. 76 times international. Olympic in Munich-72.
Later career: League champion and two-time Cup champion. Technical director of the Barcelona handball section. Co-founder of the Handbol Papiol club.
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