In a cardboard box, next to an easel with a canvas by ChavaJiménez, rests a manuscript with the secrets of the idol that disappeared 20 years ago.. A treasure ready to see the light. Juan Carlos, brother of the cyclist who died on December 6, 2003 in a clinic in Madrid where he was undergoing treatment to combat anxiety, has prepared the outline of a book that collects unpublished facts and experiences of the charismatic runner.. A work written during the last five years.

«Even though my brother left 20 years ago, for me he is still here. I have him present every day. I'm four years older than him, but we were always very close. In recent years I have painted many paintings and molded sculptures in memory of him.. I have also written thousands of pages about his life and my own career.. It is a first-person account of some unknown and documented events.. At the moment I don't want to tell much more details, everything will come in its time,” warns Juan Carlos Jiménez, painter and sculptor.

«With these written pages I want to make my brother immortal. May your memory always remain alive. “I have it all written down,” says the artist and custodian of the Chava sanctuary.. Juan Carlos, a former student of the Círculo de Bellas Artes of Madrid and the Massachusetts School, has a studio in what was the former runner's chalet in El Barraco (Ávila). There are piled up paintings, portraits, photographs, trophies and sculptures of the brilliant climber.

José María Chava Jiménez never won one of the three great races but his legacy, steeped in legend due to his premature death (32 years old), remains very much alive.. He died at 10 pm on December 6, 2003, shortly after showing his photo album to the patients at the San Miguel clinic in Madrid, where he was admitted.. The winner of four Vuelta Mountain Awards (1997, 1998, 1999 and 2001) and Spanish road champion in 1997 was an excessive character, capable of the greatest feats and the most unexpected collapses.. He lived to the limit and never deprived himself of anything. At the beginning of 2002 he fell into the abyss. «With depression I only feel sad and want to cry…. It's a lie that I have a drug addiction problem.. “That's rumors and nonsense,” he said in an interview with the Crónica supplement of this newspaper in September 2002.. “He died as he ran, in an attack and suddenly,” confessed Antonia, his mother, at the wake set up at that time in Madrid.

Two decades later, fans continue to remember the exploits of the former teammate of Pedro Delgado and Miguel Indurain. He was a marvelous climber, third place in the 1998 Vuelta and winner of nine stages in the Spanish round, for the most famous pages in history was the victory in Angliru, in 1999, climbing under the fog and surpassing the Russian Pavel Tonkov in the last breath. He made his professional debut in 1992 and always played in the Banesto team structure of José Miguel Echavarri and Eusebio Unzúe.

FLOWERS IN THE CEMETERY

«People come here from all over, from Malaga, from Santander, from Barcelona, from Valencia…. They pass by the house where my brother lived, take photos next to his bronze bust, go to the cemetery and leave flowers. 20 years have passed and they still remember him. It is alive in everyone's memory. People remember his exploits and love him for his way of being,” emphasizes the author of two gigantic sculptures dedicated to his brother and erected in roundabouts in El Barraco and Ávila.

In the upper part of El Barraco, next to the mountain, there is a street and a roundabout in honor of José María Jiménez, in front of the memorial monument is Chava's studio and sanctuary. His sister Piedad, wife of former cyclist Carlos Sastre, also lives in that area.. Your chalet is located a stone's throw from the sports center named after the 2008 Tour de France winner.. Very close to there there is a street that pays tribute to Ángel Arroyo (second in the 1983 Tour de France). The aroma of cycling surrounds this Avila town of just over 1,800 inhabitants. Friends and colleagues from Chava also passed through Víctor Sastre's school, such as David Navas, Paco Mancebo, Curro García and Pablo Lastras.. The last one who points out excellent conditions is Yeray Sastre (19 years old, son of the winner of the Tour de France), who has a style very similar to his uncle Chava. The Vuelta a España honored him on the tenth anniversary of his death, with a trophy for the winner of the stage completed in the port of Ancares.

His brother never won the Vuelta, Giro or Tour, but they continue to remember him for his performances. He got people to sit in front of the television or listen to the radio.. Many gathered in the bars to see what he was doing. He never went unnoticed, when many considered him defeated, he resurfaced. I remember one time when they said on television that he was going to retire in one stage, I think it was in the Sierra Nevada.. He listened to him and came out to give a great show. Two decades have passed and it seems that everything is still the same. It's already been 20 years, but he is still present in my mind. Every day I remember him. I have painted dozens of paintings of him, I keep many of his trophies and personal things from his time as a runner: caps, bibs, shaving foam, gels… The emotion and feelings remain very intense. “The passage of time does not affect.”

The 56-year-old versatile artist explains that the family was always very close to the cyclist, in good times and bad. «I don't like to remember his last stage, with depression and his time in the clinic. Here we are all passing through. We all have one day and whatever has to happen will happen,” he explains, while placing a portrait of his brother in his house in El Barraco.

«On this 20th anniversary we are all excited, but especially my mother. He has a hard time today and every day, because the death of a child is impossible to accept. It is something irrecoverable. My brother left when he was 32, but there are children who die shortly after birth or in wars, as we are seeing now.. It's awful. My mother goes to the cemetery every week, prays, cleans the grave. I accompany her sometimes, but I go to the door. I stay out because I don't like going to those places, when I go it's to stay forever,” emphasizes Juan Carlos, a brother who never forgets.

Modern, industrialized football demands workers who feed it in all its facets, and word of mouth, offers from agents or the scouting network are no longer enough.. Not even artificial intelligence with its analysis programs that monitor players in the main leagues. There is a tool exported from the world of work that is beginning to be installed: the connection between supply and demand, between the professional who is looking for a job, or wants to improve it, and the team, club or even federation that needs to recruit personnel.

The headline of this article is not entirely a journalistic license to explain a phenomenon that grew up around modest football and that expands its scope to the professional categories.. Respond to a job offer on FutbolJobs, an online platform created in 2013 as the first active employment exchange for professions related exclusively to football. In 10 years, the company that was born in Orihuela (Alicante) directed by Valentín Botella Nicolás, has collected offers for players, coaches, physical trainers, physiotherapists or analysts from all over the world. Now, even from the First Division.

“We are looking for a midfielder (strong and physical) for a First Division club in Spain, a proven professional player in the division, with a community passport, option of free exit or loan, without agent or agencies”. This is an advertisement that has been active for 44 days and to which 384 candidates have applied. As in any job offer, the requirements are clear: “Profile on Transfermarkt (Minimum value 800,000 euros), experience in LaLiga (Preferable), European passport and active this season”. The salary, “according to the player's profile.”

But there is more. «They are looking for a left-footed, fast and deep winger for the First Division of Spain. Proven players with experience in the category, community passport, free of agents and with the option of free exit or loan». In this case, the requirement is a profile valued at one million euros and the salary is defined as “competitive”, for which 252 candidates are applying in an offer that is still open.

The last one is only a few hours old and already has around twenty applicants.. «Center forward for Spanish First Division club. Requirements: must be fast and strong, able to keep the ball, with experience and good statistics. Submit profile on Transfermarkt. Only for official agent of the player, we will not talk to third parties. The club has a transfer budget of up to 12 million and a salary of up to 750,000 euros per year.”.

This window did not exist in football until the birth of this platform, comparable to the well-known Infojobs or LinkedIn, and players from Tercera RFEF, Preferente or Regional have used it for years, to whom recognized coaches such as Lucas Alcaraz, with a long resume in the First and Second Division, Jon Errasti, former Éibar player now coach in the Villarreal youth team, and even a well-known Spanish international now on the bench. Professionals, many of whom do not allow their names to be given, find the tool useful, but clubs do too.. Before the First Division offers, those from some Second Division clubs also arrived, interested in collecting profiles of interesting players.. For representation agencies it is also a good recruitment weapon.. They also publish them to later serve profiles to the teams they work with.. More than 180,000 users from 160 countries use it.

«Our job consists of putting the person who wants to work in the world of football in agreement with the team or company that demands it.. “We are not agents nor do we charge for the transaction,” Botella assures ELMUNDO.. Its income comes from subscriptions, which are around 5,000 active today and, although access to FutbolJobs is free, to view the full content of the offer, initiate contact and respond with a resume or videos it is necessary to be a subscriber to one. of the packs.

The platform publishes an average of 10 offers a day from all over the world that pass its initial screening. Afterwards, everything is in the hands of its users and their only job is to track, if possible, whether what they call “a success story” has occurred.. That is, a match. “We estimate that we have had close to 2,000 success stories in these ten years and many are from professionals who have been chaining jobs that were offered or requested through us,” adds Botella Nicolás.

Three million for a complete coaching staff

If there are offers in Spain, where professional football is emerging strongly, they multiply. A tsunami was what unleashed an offer from Saudi Arabia for players because it offered $4,000 a month plus a house to play in its third division. But there is not only money for players. They also published an offer of three million euros for a complete coaching staff for a team, this time, First Division.

In the North American Major League Soccer (MLS), a “first coach” is sought for the Seattle Sounders reserve team, but classic markets also publish offers such as physical trainer for the West Ham academy or physiotherapists for Spartak Prague.

Reinforcements are also being sought for the offices, such as the Singapore Federation, which is trying to recruit a manager for the operational and administrative management of the centers where it hopes to develop its future talents.

Women's football does not escape, despite the fact that professionalization does not reach the same level nor does it move at the same speed in all countries.. In Germany they are looking for players for second division teams, but the Oceania Confederation has an active advertisement to find women's football directors to “manage and drive the development strategy of women's football, including participation, visibility, education, performance and culture.

FutbolJobs also completes its job offer with training opportunities offered through its collaboration agreements with entities such as Real Madrid, LaLiga, the RFEF or the Johan Cruyff Institute.. “It is possible that at the beginning it was seen as something strange in a professional world that connected through other means, but today I believe that a tool like ours is basic for those who intend to look for jobs in the world of football,” says the general director.. The ball industry has already taken another step.

Mónica Calzetta has won the Spanish Championship seven times and has represented the country in 14 Chess Olympiads, which are held every two years.. On November 19, she was proclaimed world champion of veterans in Italy, in the over 50 category.. It seemed logical to think that talking to her would be a party, minutes after her victory. But not. The conversation turned into a lament, an open check.

«I am happy to finally achieve an important result. I had some a long time ago: I won two zonal championships and a European Union Championship, but they didn't have much impact either,” he comments, although his seven national titles are not within everyone's reach: “Yes, but now I won't be able to participate with the national team.. “They left me out.”

In fact, Spain played without her in the European Championship held a few weeks ago in Montenegro. Just on the eve of his last game in the World Cup, which he had already tied up, the Spanish Federation (FEDA) informed Calzetta that his appeal had not been successful.. “I'm going to have to go to the Higher Sports Council,” she says.. «In the bases it says that the team is formed in strict order of Elo and I had 35 points more than another player who is going to participate. It is not at the discretion of the selector. “They interpret it differently, but it is very clear in the regulations.”

The controversy of the selection

It is worth clarifying that Calzetta believes that, according to the norm, the team must be formed from the latest Elo list, while the FEDA considers that an average of the latest classifications should be made.. With this last criterion, the world champion has been left out by tenths.

The captain of the team himself, Iván Salgado, who recently took office, claims the power to choose the players, or at least a few, without being bound by a criterion that he considers “absurd.”. “The formula is what it is and I think it is well applied, but very big structural changes must be made,” he says.

The coach also wants to be able to include more players in the concentrations prior to the big tournaments and have a preselection of eight or ten chess players in them.. He also remembers that last year he himself was left out of the World Cup in Israel simply because they forgot to call him.

In Calzetta's opinion, the treatment she has received is not by chance. «It has been many years since I have been called for any concentration. Sometimes they have done previous training and they have not taken me. Once they did it very close to my house and they didn't let me go either.

Why this abuse? I don't know. They have been ignoring me for years. I try to play chess and forget stories. I don't understand why they treat me like that. With the other players the treatment is correct. The problem is with the Federation. Something happens there. They haven't told me clearly, but there are people who have told me that I am on the blacklist. A women's championship, the reason

Calzetta believes that it all started when, 20 years ago, several players sent a letter “to ask that the Spanish women's championship not be removed.” In the last mixed edition, three women were among the top 20, but this formula does not satisfy all chess players.

“It hurts us a lot,” says Calzetta. «We are the only country in the world where there are no women's national championships. Since I showed that I was not satisfied, they treat me worse. “I won the Spanish Championship and I had to pay for the European Championship out of my pocket.” She will be able to attend the next World Cup, as current champion, invited by FIDE. “Goodness. “I'm going to continue playing, unless they sanction me, which is the last thing I would need,” he adds.

The world champion explains why she considers a Spanish Women's Championship necessary in a sport like chess: «There is the Women's World Championship and the European Championship.. To qualify, it must be done as fairly as possible. The current Spanish Championship is an open tournament and there the result is not usually the fairest, because the players face other chess players who fight for other things or for nothing, directly.

Why are there a lack of women?

“Neither France, nor England, nor Italy, nor Germany do it like this,” he insists.. «In all of them there is a national women's championship. In Spain, for a strange reason, we are more feminist. They all play together and that does not improve the level of the players. Even María Eizeguerri said it when she won the Spanish Youth Championship. If I had lost the last game, I wouldn't have even been the women's champion.. It's a lottery. We can play many mixed tournaments during the year to train, but to choose the best we have to measure ourselves.

Why do women have worse results, in general? Many stop chess at school age and we are less. The girls see that they have no way out or recognition. If a player's image never appears, who do they want to look like? There is a lack of female references. Mine was Judit Polgar and we have been lucky that the series 'The Queen's Gambit' came out, which is a reference, even if it is fiction. Since then, more girls have signed up for competitions and classes.. I now have many more students. If there were more references like that, there would be more female players and they could reach the same level as the men.

Mónica Calzetta complains that not even she, with such an impressive track record, has been able to make a good living from chess. «I have been able to earn a living by teaching, but competing certainly not. It bothers me in the sense that the prizes for the women's championships don't motivate much either.. In that sense, I think that FIDE is doing very well and they promote women's chess a lot, which was already. The FEDA needs to do it too,” he concludes.

The Tax Agency will have to return some 2,418,373.20 euros to former motorcycling world champion Dani Pedrosa, corresponding to the settlement of the income for the years 2005 and 2006, which the treasury had claimed from him because it understood that he resided in Spain. .

In the ruling of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber to which EFE has had access, the National Court upholds the appeal filed by Pedrosa against the liquidation of personal income tax corresponding to the years 2005 and 2006, understanding that he was not obliged to pay taxes in Spain as I was residing in the United Kingdom at that time.

Although the sentence can still be appealed in cassation before the Supreme Court, the Treasury will have to return 2,418,373.20 euros to the Catalan pilot, along with late payment interest which, according to the appellant, would amount to approximately 600,000 euros more.

Pedrosa's lawyer, David Gil, highlighted in a statement that his client “is very satisfied with the conclusion of these processes, in which it has been shown that he never lied about his tax residence, as the Tax Agency maintained.”