Between the Tajamar School, when a weak kid outwitted rivals with that audacity that only the neighborhood gives, and the explosion of football on Sunday in Montjuïc, when the Girona coach celebrated an unforgettable victory against Barça, everything has arrived in its time for Miguel Ángel Sánchez Muñoz. At 48 years old, Míchel is the most acclaimed coach of the moment. The leader of the League. The head of a project that shakes the hierarchies of Spanish football. Today, Míchel no longer plays with skinned knees on the dirt fields of Nuestra Señora de la Torre, on the outskirts of Vallecas.. Today, he is simply the great protagonist of a tournament in need of fresh air. Although everything, of course, took time.
Míchel has traveled through the secondary roads of football until taking the big leap in Girona, a club under the auspices of the City Football Group (CFG), the same one that supports Pep Guardiola in Manchester. Today, thanks to a very specific plan, supported by young players with undeniable talent, it not only captivates with its style, but also surpasses the rest in terms of competitiveness.. To his game model, with the ball as the protagonist, he adds a winning mentality that has been channeled into various comebacks. However, despite appearances, to really know Míchel the parameters of the ball are not enough.
«What differentiates him from the rest is his ability to understand the game, to take advantage of his strengths and attack the opponent's weaknesses.. Also to keep all members of the staff connected. However, he is such an honest and close guy that what is truly nuclear for him is his family.. In his profile photo you will not see anything about football, but rather his wife and two children,” a SD Huesca manager tells this newspaper.. In fact, during his time at El Alcoraz, between 2019 and 2021, neither Lara nor Miguel Ángel nor Alex were able to accompany him as much as they would have liked.. And he had a really bad time.
“it never leaves you”
That tribal spirit to move through life is the watchword for Míchel, son of Candela and Benjamín, owners of a fruit store in Vallecas, brother of Gema and two other men.. All humble employees. The youngest of a family that made the neighborhood its livelihood. Its reason for being. Always tangled with the ball, the boy was uncovering his potential until Rayo caught him during a test at Tajamar. After almost two decades as a professional, between 1993 and 2012, he emerged as the greatest figure in the history of the franjirroja. «He is a guy who never abandons you, who is always looking out for you. For him, his people will always be his people, wherever they are.. It doesn't matter that 10 months go by without calling you, because, among other things, I know how he treated one of our workers while he was facing colon cancer,” says a former member of the organization chart.
There are still friendships that remain from the times at the Raimundo Lulio School, where he was such a bad student, so unruly, that even many years later he still could not believe that he had signed, as co-author, a methodology book.. It was titled Integrated Football Training in Early Ages and was written, among others, with Víctor Paredes, former physical trainer of Rayo, today in the Real Madrid reserve team.. He intended to strengthen the ties between the quarry and the first team.. He had just hung up his boots and that meant the decisive rapprochement with his admired Paco Jémez, with whom he shared five years, between 2012 and 2016.
A shadow work so characteristic of trainers who end up becoming leaders. There were hours without quarter in the Ciudad Deportiva del Rayo, where the first team coach did not hesitate to come to attend the games of the alevins, benjamines or cadets.. And greet, almost one by one, the kids. Both shared the Rayista faith, cultivated at the altar of Jesús Diego Cota, and the conviction that these facilities, inaugurated in 2010, would sustain the only possible future for La Franja.. «Míchel will always be from Vallecas. The neighborhood embraced him from the first minute and has not yet let go.. No matter how much he comes with other teams, we will always applaud and love him,” they add from Raúl Martín Presa's club.. Just a month ago, during the last league visit, the entire stadium chanted his name under the same tune: “He took us out of the Second Division, from Rayo to the grave.”
That bond with Paco continues to this day, despite the Persian journey of the Canarian, head of Tractor FC, one of the most popular clubs in Iran.. However, Míchel has freed himself from the rigorous interpretation of Jemecism, which guided his first steps as a coach.. Today it would be absurd to consider him an esthete who privileges any type of beauty to the detriment of the result.. “He himself has acknowledged that he was confused about many things, whether due to youth or posing impossible challenges,” admits one of his closest friends.
In this turn towards pragmatism, one of his references has been Julen Lopetegui, with whom he shared a dressing room in Vallecas for five seasons.. When they met, in 1997, he was a 22-year-old kid and the former Real Madrid and Barcelona goalkeeper was already 31.. Over two decades, Míchel never stopped listening to his advice. And when football offered its most bitter side, he did not hesitate to follow its trail in search of balance in the system and structure.
I regret not having done more for him at SD Huesca
Because, although now on confetti and glitter in Montilivi, we must not forget that those promotions with Rayo in 2018 and Huesca in 2020 faded almost immediately. In March 2019 he suffered his first dismissal in Vallecas. In January 2021, with only one victory after 18 days, he was struck down in El Alcoraz. “Now, when I remember it, my eyes still get wet, because it was a very hard moment,” recalls one of the leaders.. “After the war we are all generals, but today, although it sounds advantageous, I regret not having done more for him,” he adds.
Curiously, the day of greatest anxiety in the Barça club occurred after a cruel defeat in Santander, against a Racing team already condemned to Second B. «We lost the first bullet for the climb and I remember seeing him very upset during the return flight. He ate two bags of candy. I told him to go home, be with his wife and prepare for war.. A few days later we beat Numancia and achieved promotion,” he recalls.. The ups and downs of football. The same ones that pressured him during his first year in Girona. Then, when the team was wandering through the lower area, Delfí Geli, president, and Kike Cárcel, sports director, agreed to renew it.. His current contract extends until 2026.
Psychological help
“What excites me is that the player feels happy and improves every day, that by talking and training with him he can progress”. Repeated so many times, it became a mantra for Míchel, who, after two days of rest after 2-4, will gather his men again first thing in the morning. The priority, which transcends the tactical, will once again be limited to the personal: knowing how they rested during the night or how things are going at home.. Success is based on this permanent dialogue with the squad and their desire to integrate into the club's day-to-day life, learning and speaking Catalan during press conferences.
Mental health, of course, is also among its objectives. Since 2018 – those days of glory due to the rise of Rayo – he himself requested psychological help to control anxiety. And in the technical area of El Alcoraz his little games with a plastic bottle were famous, drawing a pirouette before landing on his feet again.. A method to isolate yourself from noise.
Míchel, on Saturday, during a press conference.
Today, Míchel has strong arguments to compete for the title until the end. Because his game model in Girona is as beautiful as it is effective. In fact, the 41 points in 16 days represent the second best record of the last decade, only behind Barça in 2017-18. That year, Ernesto Valverde's team was proclaimed champion. Like Atlético in 2021, also with 41 units. Or just like the Blaugrana last year. Since 2007, with Juande Ramos at the helm of Sevilla, no team other than Real Madrid, Barça or Atlético has led the table with the League so advanced.
100 matches in First Division
With these figures on the table, the parallels with Leicester, champion of the Premier League in 2016, should not sound crazy at all. That Claudio Ranieri fairy tale could be reissued with this team built around CFG and led by executives with enough cunning to fish the market better than anyone else.. For example, last winter, with five million euros to Dynamo kyiv for Viktor Tsyngakov, then valued at 22 million.
Pending what will be approved in a few days at the General Shareholders' Meeting, the last budget closed in Montilivi was estimated at 55 million euros. A ridiculous amount next to the 766 of Real Madrid or the 914 of Barça. In any case, no one should avoid another differentiating factor: Girona has access to talents such as Savio, Yangel Herrera and Yan Couto, all on loan from City, thanks to their collaboration with CFG.
Meanwhile, Míchel was able to celebrate his 100th game as a coach in Primera on Sunday.. After the historic 2-4, closed by Christian Stuani, Girona has nine consecutive victories as a visitor, including those in the Copa del Rey against San Roque and Orihuela. Right now, he not only tops the table, but he has more goals (38), more assists (29) and a better goals-to-shots ratio (0.22) than anyone else in LaLiga. Records at the level of Liverpool and Inter Milan, the leaders of the other two reference tournaments. And their league projections even improve those of the last three champions: Barça, with 88 points in 2023; Real Madrid, with 86 in 2022 and Atlético, with 86 in 2021.