Javier Aguirre's life in football: coaching Salah, managing in Spain, his desires to move to England

LEGANES, Spain -- "And then he hit it bloody brilliantly, so I ended up looking like a champ."

Javier Aguirre bursts out laughing, and not for the last time. He's reflecting on Manuel Negrete's superb, acrobatic volley at the 1986 World Cup -- and Aguirre's "assist" for the goal, if that's not too generous a word to use, which he's sure it is. Aguirre played for the hosts, Mexico, that summer and was a key player in a team that had been together for an entire year, travelling the world to play games in preparation for the tournament only to lose to Germany in the quarterfinal.

That day in 1986, Aguirre was in tears. Not so much because of the defeat or the red card he received, but because it was The End.

"I was sad because I couldn't help thinking about the fact that that group we had built together was going to break up and it wouldn't ever happen again," he says. "The manager, Bora Milutinovic, said 'Javier, don't try to replicate this, don't try to make 25 players friends.' And he's right. I learned a lesson that day, one I still apply as a coach: you try to build a good collective, real unity, and you get rid of the rotten apple if needs be, but it's not that easy."

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He also concedes that there are few friends in football. Not even in that team. "I'll go for a coffee and have a chat with Negrete, but real friends, I don't know. Some, but ..."

Football does that to you, Aguirre says. And few know football like him. He scored 13 in 59 games across nine years for Mexico, but that was his last World Cup as a player. Soon after the tournament, he joined Osasuna in Spain, a journey he would take again 16 years later, this time as coach. Aguirre's half-century in the game, 25 of them as a manager, have taken him to four continents and three more World Cups: once as assistant, twice as coach. Aged 61 but as full of life and entertaining as ever, he is back in Spain via Japan, Abu Dhabi and Egypt.

Aguirre is back in La Liga on a familiar rescue mission, the likes of which he has successfully pulled off before. Leganés are bottom of La Liga. Sitting together at the club's training ground before the coronavirus pandemic would bring such meetings to a halt, a fascinating hour flies by, an exploration of a life in the game spent here there and everywhere. Well, just about everywhere: there is one place, it turns out, he still really wants to go. There are also lessons at every turn delivered by a personality who fills the room, the English he speaks fluently sprinkled through his characteristic Mexican Spanish, packed with slang and swear words, with which he communicates throughout the interview.

More to the point, he's somehow still smiling. The grin is still there. There's no way of wiping it from his face.

"I'm at Leganés: how do I look to you?" Aguirre asks, answering his own question: "I look happy." He does. There's something almost untouchable about him. It's almost like after all these years and all those teams, he's beyond all that. "Yes, totally," he says. "Totally. Absolutely right."

ESPN: After all these years, you didn't need this either, so why come? You could live a life with zero pressure.

Good question. Pressure always affects you because [when] you generate a connection with the lads, you think "I'm not going to abandon them." I could make more money commentating games on television -- double, triple [the money] -- and I wouldn't care who wins.

When Felipe [Moreno, Leganes vice president] and Victoria [Pavón, Leganes president] came for me after five years away in Japan, Egypt, Abu Dhabi, I said to myself, "Is it worth it at 61?" But then I said, "I'll take the challenge."

Why? Because I like it. I like feeling that I'm helping people and able to say: "Come on, we can do this." It's my passion. And if on top of that, I'm 20 minutes from home [Aguirre has a house in Madrid] and they put money in my account every month... haha! It's not bad. Thank God every day.

Do you have anything to prove?

No, nothing. I don't care. My career in Spain and in Mexico has been... well, average [in English]. People say "a relegation here might affect your reputation, the way you're seen by fans in Mexico." But I can't think about that: I have to think about the 25 [players] who are here, to help the family.

Twenty-five are here; two aren't. [He's referring to the January sales of forwards Youssef En-Nesyri and Martin Braithwaite, to Sevilla and Barcelona respectively, for a combined profit of 30 million euros.] En-Nesyri and Braithwaite were so important and a good partnership despite the fact that they seem very different: one's a bit hot-headed, the other very sensible ... we were winning games with them and then, pfff, En-Nesyri goes. Next, Martin does.

Publicly, you can't say "we're screwed" but you must be thinking "this isn't the team I took on"?

Of course. Deep down. I'm saying to my wife, "I signed for one team, now I have another." Guido [Carrillo] was my sub for games when we had to hit the ball long, high. Now he's my starter. It's not just the players; it's the formation, the approach. I can't play with five at the back anymore; it has to be four [at the back] with two forwards, looking for crosses. If they're slow [up front], I can't play on the counter [like before], waiting, ready to spring ... We have to go tumba abierta ["all out"]: press, rob higher, [risk] leaving space, try to play in the opposition's half. I have to convince them, win them over.

Are you a seducer when it comes to management?

Totally, totally. Seduction is a good word. All managers have that power of conviction. You have to be able to reach them. I'll give you an example: I speak English and in Abu Dhabi it was OK, but in Egypt and Japan ... grrr ... body language helps a lot but it's not totally effective.

There are two great managers that [Spain] has given us, maybe the best, and they're Vicente del Bosque and Luis Aragones. Both failed in Turkey. They failed. Because they're both about talking, about reaching players and [in Turkey] they couldn't. Even if the translator is perfect, it's not the same. In Japan, when I arrived, they said "Mister, don't shout at the players a lot." And I said, "What did you sign me for, then?"

You say "act" -- is being manager an act? Is there a touch of pantomime about it?

Absolutely. Look at [Tottenham manager Jose] Mourinho, [Man City manager Pep] Guardiola, [Liverpool manager Jurgen] Klopp. It comes out naturally -- it's not something that you learn at [coaching] school -- but there's a role played. Look at what [Atletico Madrid manager Diego] Simeone does: he's a conductor [of the crowd].

There are lots of "classroom" coaches [with] videos and stats, but then on the pitch, you have to have the power of conviction, the ability to seduce, to have that smile. Nowadays there are so many stats and this [points at his nose] doesn't get used anymore. But that will be [my tool] until I die; I get told things, I can have 17 assistants telling me to do something based on the data, but I still trust in it.

It's our obligation to have all that information, to know it and understand it, but not to only use that or to weigh players down with it all. You have to reach them.

When you see Klopp, what do you see?

Personality, character, closeness ...

Exactly that. And on top of that he's tall. With that guy, you'd go to war.

Or to the pub.

Haha! Exactly that. And then you'll see coaches who for the whole 90 minutes are sitting there, noting things down alongside their assistant. What does that guy say to you?!

The example is Barcelona assistant Eder Sarabia, who cameras caught swearing on the bench during the clásico. This is just a guy doing his job, isn't it?

Of course. He's doing his job, and that's it. The man doing that has to have a feeling for how far he can do that, where the limits are. And that's not easy.

Players "smell" the manager: they look at how you dress, how you talk, how you write, how you teach. They're looking at you with a magnifying glass. "This guy doesn't even know how to control a ball, what's he going to teach me?"