Raul has told the White-Blues official web site about his career, move to Kazan, shared his opinion about Dynamo players etc.
- Raul, are you both physical trainer and tactics coach?
- I’m a physical trainer, but I also have UEFA PRO license. Thus I also work as assistant coach.
- How did you start your professional career?
- My career started long time ago in Gimnastica de Torrelavega. This team featured in Segunda. I worked there as physical trainer and Manuel Manolo Preciado’s assistant coach. Later I worked for Racing de Santander, Levante UP and FC Rubin Kazan.
Unfortunately a year and a half ago Manolo Preciado died. He was my best friend. We worked together for 12 years.
- How come you moved to Kazan to work for Rubin?
- I was invited to this club to hold a masterclass which lasted five weeks. Kurban Berdyev was interested in peculiarities of play which make Spanish clubs successful. He wanted to use these elements in Rubin. Everyone was impressed with my masterclass. Eventually I was offered a contract and I worked for Rubin for five years.
- Was it difficult to adapt to life in new country?
- Actually it wasn’t. There’s no great difference between Ukrainians, Russians and people, who live in Northern Spain, where I come from.
In Kazan it takes people some time to start trusting a new person. In Ukraine I got hearty welcome at once, like in Spain.
- Whom do you consider to be the best physical trainer in the world and whose example do you follow?
- Some 15 years ago they used the same approach to football players’ physical training as to athletes’. Still we realized that Russians, Ukrainians and Germans are stronger than Spaniards due to genetic peculiarities. That’s why we decided to focus on our performers’ mental processing. Thus we got such players as Xavi, Iniesta and David Silva and other. In Spain they don’t understand why one should run across forests and mountains.
- Do Dynamo players have proper qualification to reach ambitious goals?
- I can’t pay much attention to performers’ physical conditions at the moment as we play two matches a week. Unfortunately I wasn’t present at Dynamo winter training camp. Anyway we’ve made some changes in tactics and we try to make players adapt to them.
- Is it possible to build a model of play in Dynamo based on ball control?
- It is. The thing is that players aren’t used to collective tactical thinking. There are many good performers in Ukraine and Russia, but their team thinking isn’t developed enough. Anyway we work on that.
- Do you already see results of your work?
- You’d better ask players about that. Still I already notice that they think differently on the pitch.
- Don’t you have communicational problems because of language barrier?
- Interpreters always help me to communicate with performers, just like my character when I explain something in Spanish or Russian (laughing). Players are like children, sometimes it’s necessary to compliment them and sometimes – to bawl at them. Anyway they understand that all my claims are aimed for improvement of their play.
- How many football matches do you watch a day?
- A lot. First of all I pay attention to play model of this or that team. I follow different leagues. I also watch every Dynamo game two or three times.
- Do you live alone in Kyiv or with your family?
- I live alone. My wife can’t leave her job in Spain. Still she’ll come to Kyiv to see chestnuts blossom. She should see this beautiful city.
- Have you been to Independence Square?
- Sure. I was really impressed with what I saw.
- How do you spend your free time?
- I go to the cinema or shopping. Still I don’t have a lot of free time as football is constantly in my head (smiling).
- What are your impressions of Ukrainian cuisine?
- It’s delicious. Especially I like first courses, like borshch and different soups – they are great!
- Weren’t you afraid of going to Kyiv when there were armed conflicts in the city?
- I wasn’t, but my family worried a lot. I’ve been working outside Spain for more than five years, so I actually wanted to have rest, but my friend Serhiy Rebrov invited me and I couldn’t say him nay.
Igor Bondarenko
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