2023-11-10 07:30:17
Feel praise and recognition towards the figure of Michel has become the daily bread thanks to the brilliant trajectory that the Madrid coach is signing in Montilivi. A rise in his first year here was followed by a season in which Europe was scrubbed and now, the team is First Division leader ahead of Barça i Madrid after twelve days. “It is different, special, magical, it has energized us all at the club” or “he turned all the accumulated suffering into successes” are some of the words he dedicated to him Quique Cárcel in an interview with this newspaper this week. The Barcelona native melts in praise every time he talks about Míchel. He is not the only one. So do his professional colleagues and many of the players he has coached, both in Girona and inOsca i al Rayo, whom he also promoted to the First Division in his first two experiences on the bench in the elite (2016-19 and 2019-21).
«You have a gem. Take good care of him, because Girona does not know the treasure he has found». No one linked to the world of professional football is speaking. Is Miguel Toril, the president of the Mar Abierto Football School in Vallecas, and the man who had the honor of enjoying Míchel the coach for the first time. It was 1999 and the young Míchel, aged 24, had to make the substitute social benefit. At that time, in Spain, military service was compulsory and the way to save it was by doing the service that consisted of doing public utility services. And that’s how Míchel had his first experience on the benches as coach of Benjamí of EF Mar Abierto. It’s been almost a quarter of a century since then, however the mark that Míchel left on the school will remain for the rest of his life.
How did Míchel end up in the Open Sea? Its first president remembers that when Santiago Redondo, ex-player and then coach of the Rayo squad, he proposed, the club opened its doors to him. “It was immediately clear that Míchel was delighted to come. He was having a great time and we all loved him very much. Managers, parents and children”, explains Toril. The president describes how the now white-and-red coach even “stayed to play the mus” at the end of the training sessions with the leaders. «He was one more member of the club’s family”. His job, as a professional footballer at Rayo, did not prevent him from going to his team’s games, which he played on Fridays. Far from the rigor of now with Girona, Míchel’s training at Mar Abierto was a gift for the baby. Also for him who amused himself for an hour playing with his first disciples. “Apart from training and teaching football concepts to the children, he played and had a blast», recalls Toril.
From master to companion
Who remembers less about that season is Tony Arranz. logical He was only four years old and was one of the boys who kicked the ball for the first time. “He was very small! Yes, I know that we went out to Ace and Marca in some reports they did for him”, explains the now player of Cornellà, of First RFEF. Arranz is the only one of that Open Sea team to have ended up being a professional (Rayo B, Ibiza, UCAM, Ejido, Córdoba, Numancia…). Earlier, during his training period at Rayo, he met Míchel again. In this case, already as colleagues in the 2012-13 campaign. “I was a second-year youth player and they took me up to train with the first team where there was still Míchel, who was playing his last season before retiring.” Young Arranz had the chance to meet his first mentor again, who dropped a sentence he will never forget. «He told me, when you come with the first team train without fear or shame».
Arranz and Míchel have never lost touch since then. “When he was at the subsidiary, he was the second coach of Aleví B del Rayo where his eldest son, Miguel Ángel, played”, reveals the footballer. They even met at a wedding two summers ago and talked about Girona. Now, with the white-and-red team leading Primera, Arranz does not hesitate to ensure that Míchel is “the best coach in the First Division». “He sees where to hurt his opponents with overwhelming ease” and this is within the reach of a select few. At the moment, the schedules of the games with Cornellà have not allowed him to approach Montilivi to see and greet his former coach, but he does not think it will take long to do so.
As a result of that experience, Míchel’s relationship with the Vallecas school has been maintained until now and, even now, when he can, he pays a visit to the school. With the president, the bond became one of friendship. “I often went to see him at the end of Rayo’s training and we went to have a moruno pintxo here next to the Ciutat Esportiva. He has come home for lunch once, and my wife and I went to the hospital to see his son Miguel when he was born. As a person he is heaven. Fame has not gone to his head at all and he doesn’t believe in any God. This is his great secret.”
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