"People who say coaching Barça is easy have no idea"

BarcelonaBarça will seek this Sunday against Bayern at the Camp Nou (4.30 p.m.) 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, wanting to talk to 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 talk to 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 scene. 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 only the Copa Catalunya would be won— would remain in the memory of all Culés because for the first time, a Champions League final was reached. “We went to Budapest to enjoy and they thrashed us”, the coach recalls.

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

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

Barça reached the final —where they lost 4-1 to Lyon—, but they 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 far behind physically, 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 ex-Barça player.

Strengthen Saudi Arabia's women's football

Cortés also claims the difficulty of managing a winning dressing room like Barça's. “People who say it's easy have no idea. You have to align players with a lot of knowledge and experience in the same direction. You also have to be a very good manager of minutes and workloads. 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. We are now applying various strategies to bring more people to the fields, but this is a problem that also occurs in Spain. I recommend people to come and see the reality”.

The Catalan suffered the conflict between Russia and Ukraine firsthand. “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 a team and on medical issues. 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 admits. 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 living great years at Barça, Lluís Cortés emphasizes that he is from Lleida, a team managed by his brother, Jordi Cortés, and which is going through a difficult stage with relegation to the Élite 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 great 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 22 to 28. “We work so that they improve the technical aspects, but also so that they enjoy themselves. 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.