2023-04-22 08:00:39
‘I will never remember having died’ is the title of the autobiography of Julio Alberto Moreno Casas (Oviedo, 1958). There he recounts the descent, absolute in his case, into drug hell that followed the end of a brilliant football career at Atlético, at Barça and in the Spanish team. Today, Julio Alberto has set up what he calls a final degree project with the Relife Foundation, whose objective is the fight against addictions, and not only against narcotics, as was the case with him. A little over a month ago he presented the project at the Auditori 1899 of FC Barcelona.
After your personal experience, did you feel compelled to give something like this back to society?
I have crushed Laporta with the idea. He already told her 20 years ago. But it is a purpose, not a commitment or obligation. How can I help? And I have the need to be in contact with people when I work. In the founding of Barça, I have kicked around Asia, Central America, Africa… I have sat down to negotiate with the gangs in Honduras.
Hey, how do you negotiate with the gangs?
It was in San Pedro Sula. They were there with their guns and they told me: ‘if you don’t bring us the children you know what happens’. The first thing to take into account is the vision they have of you, if they see you as a threat or a person who wants to help. They found out who I was, plus the World Cup in Mexico-86 was a reference for them. We contacted the boss of the gang and told them that we had come to help, and not to take their children.
“A rigorous program of social skills is necessary for us to know how to handle ourselves in situations in which we can be tremendously vulnerable without knowing it”
¿What did you learn from your years at the Barça foundation in the training schools?
It helped me to have a project like Relife. What we want to be and what we don’t want to be. We do not want to start a project and not finish it, we want to change things in training and education. There has to be a rigorous program of social skills so that we know how to handle ourselves in dangerous situations, in situations in which we can be tremendously vulnerable without knowing it. In a relationship between the ages of 16 and 18, only one that is related to substances will implicate the other if they do not know how to handle these situations.
What is the way to try to handle them?
We want there to be education from the age of 14 to combat addictions. Workshops on how drugs are intervening in schools, institutes and universities, and also conferences with round tables for parents, police officers, doctors, directors of educational centers and sports people.
He also spoke at the presentation of his intention to help menas.
I have special interest in them. It is something already personal. I was in an orphanage for seven years of my life, and I know what it means to have no one, not knowing what will become of you. There is a special concern on my part with these kids who think that nobody loves them and that nobody cares about them.
Do you think our society too easily pushes away those in trouble?
We not only push them away, but we already exclude them from our lives. On the subject of addictions that we touch on, it is tremendously hard. When someone has a problem like this, there are people in their own family who will stop talking to them. And on the street and at work I don’t tell you anything. As he is cut off from society, he has virtually no choice.
Are too many errors penalized? Why is it hard to give a second chance?
I think we live in a country where if you make a mistake they will punish you a lot. In America I would be a hero, I would be giving conferences all day in front of 5,000 people, I would have a Netflix series… Here it has been very difficult for me. It’s been 30 years since everything happened for the first time, and recently, I have a greater recognition.
“In America I would be a hero, I would be giving conferences all day in front of 5,000 people… Here it has been very difficult for me. It has been 30 years since everything happened and for the first time, and recently, I have greater recognition”
He is hurt by this situation.
Hurt, no. Getting here has not been easy. Until not long ago, three or four years, people still asked me how I was: ‘But are you…?’ ‘I’m what? I don’t understand what you’re asking me,’ I said. It is true that I have not been a person who goes to television to give explanations of any kind, although they have called me. I have a contract signed with a production company to make a documentary of my life. It looks good and let’s see if we push it forward.
When have you worked in aid programs, have you done so through your personal experiences?
I have spent many years working with talks for children and with older people whom I have tried to help on the subject of addictions. Whenever I could I have been there, almost all were acquaintances or friends. Based on my own experiences, true, and I have been collaborating for four years with sports programs and reintegration and rehabilitation of the prisons of Catalonia, also with Justice in juvenile delinquency programs. Also in Murcia, in Galicia, the Basque Country,,,
Can you isolate yourself from the personal stories you know? How do you protect yourself from the most complicated situations?
It is hard because in some way you become part of their family, they have you as a reference, but it is the person affected who has to leave the subject. Teresa of Calcutta was asked one day how she could help so many people and she said: “your problem is not my problem. When you come to me, I’ll try to figure it out. If I go to bed with your problem, I won’t be able to solve it.” I put that example with toothache. I don’t go to a pharmacy, I bring you a medicine and you take it. The next day I come to pick you up and take you to the dentist. If I manage to isolate myself, it’s because I learned it at the Proyecto Hombre in Palma. They were a reference, seeing how you don’t turn that person next to you into someone from your family. If you do, you can.
Let’s go to football, what did you teach him?
Discipline, commitment, rigor, camaraderie, sharing, enjoying together, winning and losing together.
He made his debut very young, at the age of 18, at Atlético and with a coach with the charisma of Luis Aragonés.
Atlético was for me like my father and my mother. Luis Aragonés taught me everything he had to do. He told me: ‘You can go out at night, no one forbids you, but you have to know what you want to do. You have an opportunity to be the best winger in Spain, but you have to know how you want to do things. It was tremendous… I even asked him if he could make love to my girlfriend.
“We have a project in the foundation with Barça and Atlético, and we are waiting for Madrid to join. Bringing the three of them together in a solidarity project will be the host. I think we can do it”
Was he the most important coach of your career?
It helped me a lot. Johan, Menotti, Terry Venables, Miguel Muñoz, Udo Lattek also influenced me a lot… It’s just that I’ve had it all.
He also shared a dressing room with great footballers…
Well yes. Maradona, Marcos, Carrasco, Migueli, Alexanco, Víctor, Quini, Koeman, Lineker, Stoichkov… I have had great changing rooms.
Have you ever been attracted to the idea of training?
I got my card with Pep Guardiola, Luis Enrique, Alkorta, Manjarín, Barjuan, Carlos Busquets… I considered it, yes. But there were 13 of us from Barça in that promotion and everyone wanted to train, there were hosts to enter the sports city, to see who would arrive first. I got along very well with Johan. He asked me one day why he didn’t train. And I explained to him that he didn’t want to elbow me, I didn’t like having to fight someone who had been my partner. Why don’t you do a master’s degree?, he asked me. I give you a master’s degree in sports management and marketing. It was very good for me, I learned a lot.
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Is the bench thing completely forgotten?
It’s very difficult to get hooked. They called me from Bolivia, from Peru, less than a year ago, but I have resigned for the foundation, with which we also have a project with Atlético and Barça, clubs with which I have a wonderful relationship, especially with Barça. We are waiting for Madrid to join, where I have friends like Camacho, Emilio [Butragueño] and Michel, who are going to help personally. Bringing the three of them together in a solidarity project, generous, will be the host. I think we can do it.
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