The learning that turned Barça into the best team in the world

BarcelonaBarça will seek this Sunday against Bayern at the Camp Nou (16:30 h) their seventh Champions League final in the last eight years. A Blaugrana hegemony that began in January 2019 with the arrival of Lluís Cortés (Balaguer, 1986) to the Catalan bench. “I was arriving in Balaguer after more than an hour's drive from Barcelona when Markel Zubizarreta [then sporting director] called me, saying he wanted to speak with me urgently. I turned around and there he proposed if I was ready to take on the challenge of taking over the team. The first thing I did was speak with Fran Sánchez [the coach at the time, Cortés was the assistant], who told me to take it. I am very grateful to him”, recalls the current coach of the Saudi Arabian women's national team from Riyadh.

“One of the first messages I sent to the squad was that we had to enjoy the process. To get the best out of the team, we had to have a good time, only by enjoying ourselves and making people enjoy themselves would we be able to win titles”, confesses Cortés, architect of the winning Barça that dominates the current landscape. When the man from Balaguer took the reins, the Catalan team was not winning in Spain or in Europe. That 2018-19 season —in which they would only win the Copa Catalunya— would remain in the memory of all Culés because they reached, for the first time, a Champions League final. “In Budapest we went to enjoy ourselves and they thrashed us”, reminisces the coach.

“We weren’t that far off tactically and technically”

“We were not so far apart tactically and technically”

Barça reached the final —where they lost 4-1 to Lyon—, but still had a long way to go. “The next day, at the airport, we met with the captains and they told us they had felt outmatched in all duels. As a coaching staff, we knew we were physically far behind, but we were clear that tactically and technically we weren't that far behind. We even thought we were tactically better. There we agreed that we had to train more and better. The players committed to working harder and sacrificing things,” assures the former Barcelona player.

Boost Saudi Arabia's women's football

Cortés also claims the difficulty of managing a winning dressing room like that of Barça. “People who say it’s easy have no idea. You have to align players with a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience in the same direction. You also have to be a very good manager of minutes and loads. Everyone wants to play all the time and, even more so, on important days. Managing this is the hardest part of being a Barça coach,” she points out.

Boosting Saudi Arabia's women's football

Now, Lluís Cortés has the challenge of growing women's football in Saudi Arabia. “It is a country that has the resources to invest and both the federation and the government have the will to do so in women's football”, assures the coach, who admits that it is a very different country from what is explained in Spain. “There will be some more conservative families who will not want their daughter to play football, as happens in other places, but we play in very decent stadiums with natural grass in perfect condition. Now we are applying various strategies to bring more people to the fields, but this is a problem that also happens in Spain. I recommend people to come and see the reality”.

The Catalan suffered firsthand the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “Three months after signing, the war broke out and the entire sports project was relegated to the background. We had to focus on helping the players find teams and on medical matters. You become more of a brother than a coach. We learned a lot from this experience, because you see and value what is truly important in life. They lost everything or practically everything”, he acknowledges. On the other hand, the war in the Middle East has not affected him, despite being close. “If I hadn't had a mobile phone or news on TV, I wouldn't have known. We have lived a normal life”, he assures.

A feeling that is not lost

Despite spending many years at Barça, Lluís Cortés emphasizes that he is from Lleida, a team managed by his brother, Jordi Cortés, which is going through a difficult phase with relegation to the Elite League. “It has been a very complicated year due to the results, but also due to the entire institutional situation that has been experienced, with people who wish the club a lot of harm to make it disappear and appropriate its history, when sentiment cannot be bought. Sometimes it is good to hit rock bottom to gain momentum and rise again in a sustainable and economically viable way,” he concludes. 

On the other hand, Cortés also has a specific women's soccer camp. This year, Salou will host the fourth edition, from June 22nd to 28th. "We work so that they improve the technical aspects, but also so that they enjoy. We have girls from different countries. I will be there every day and some international coach and some recognized player will also come," he encourages.