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His arrival in Bordeaux and the Ligue 1 mentality
Albert Riera on Radio Marca: “I came from Slovenia (…) I started training there, everything was going well. But since the Girondins were a former team of mine, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass even though they are in the second division. So that the listeners can understand, it’s like telling Barça that in the next 4 or 5 years they won’t be in Europe, they have to set up a project, go there little by little, etc. They are a great team, it’s not possible to say that. We all want titles, we all want to win.
There is a great team like this in every country. I detected the main problem when I arrived, in October. Besides, it is not the same as arriving in pre-season. Today, I will be able to take charge of this team. So, I found that the mentality was still in the 1st division. However, we are in the 2nd division, or in the 1st …? People were already thinking about the 1st division without having won the 2nd. That was the most difficult, changing this mentality (…) And then there was the financial problem, we couldn’t strengthen ourselves, unlike the others, and we couldn’t make the playoffs.”
This season: Ligue 1 objective?
“Yes, of course. This season there is an important thing, which is called the DNCG. It is the French financial policeman, we have to pass it. This commission must give us its approval on this year’s budget, of almost 40 million euros, and today according to a conversation with the president, they would be there. So first we have to pass that, and then see what possibilities we have to strengthen ourselves. For the moment, we have absolutely not strengthened ourselves, we are the same team as last year, we have lost two players because their contracts have ended (Nsimba and Weissbeck). So for the moment we cannot advance anything.”
“They know that I would like to have the team, with the list of players that I made for the climb”
“We all like to progress, move forward, fight to get to the top, but football puts you in your place. This year we were in the top 5 or 6 in attendance, 1st division included, imagine, so getting there and saying “that’s not the objective” (Editor’s note: To move up to the 1st division). It would be hard. I gave the example of Barça, if you arrive there and you say “we are not going to fight for La Liga”, I believe that the coach who barely arrived would not convey this message.
So going up to Ligue 1 is the goal, but we’ll see what team we’ll have and I hope we can say that we’re going to fight for that because that’s what I’d like the most, but… I’m a person who likes to talk about reality, I’m an honest person, a little too much sometimes, but if the reality is not going up. They know that I’d like to have the team, with the list of players that I made for the promotion, because that’s the goal that we like and above all this club deserves it.”
On his direct communication with French coaches: “In the 2nd division, we were 2 foreign coaches, a Portuguese in Dunkirk and me”
“So that you understand clearly. In the first division, it’s not the same, since there were 11 foreign coaches and 9 French. So in the top 6 of the first division, all the coaches were international, therefore foreign. There , they don’t confront much with foreign coaches. In the 2nd division there were 2 of us, a Portuguese in Dunkirk and me. So we are 2 foreigners out of 18 coaches. It’s normal that they (the French) protect themselves a little. Furthermore, I consider that French coaches are coaches who don’t say much outside, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have their ideas and that they don’t do things well.
And, there are people like me who like to explain why I do things. I don’t do things because I don’t wake up in the morning thinking that things would be better if I did them differently, but because I think it would suit the team better. I often explain and it’s a bit shocking, but everyone is as they are. Like everything in life, everything has its positive side and its negative side.”
>> Girondins. “This Monday morning, the details had not yet been resolved”
