The former technical assistant of the green club, Francisco Nájera, touched on various topics, including what he will do in his immediate future and what they have yet to achieve with the Antioquia club, their successes and mistakes.
You returned to the club in the administrative part and now you were as a technical assistant, what did these stages leave you?
“It was a great professional challenge after finishing my career as a footballer and having two positions in the extremely important institution, always with the intention of giving my best, just as I tried to do as a player, looking for that moment of glory that I lived with the 2016 Libertadores, I wanted to try to recreate it in those other two functions, that was always my intention.
For your future, would you like to return to the administrative part or will you stay with the technical direction?
“I discovered that I really like the training processes, that is something that is within my vocation and what I am. It is much more interesting for me to be able to develop them within a coaching staff, as a coach or assistant and helping the players, trying to improve the game. Also directing a training process through a training football management, a training coordination, because I have the ability to implement this type of project due to my training and what I have collected over the years. I feel that these are the places in which I would best function after that discovery”.
Will we see that duo with Professor Alejandro Restrepo in other teams?
“We have talked about it after our departure from Nacional, about what the next steps would be, the projects. I have a very good relationship with Alejo, first we became friends and then we worked together. So time will tell what is best. I would be happy to work with him again.”
Why not continue in National in other positions? What happened?
“When the conversation between Alejandro and Emilio (Gutiérrez) took place, the decision was for the coaching staff to step aside, there was never any other type of request or proposal. But I also felt that it was a moment in which if things did not work out for us, I should take a breather, evaluate myself and that is what I am going to do during these months”.
What were your successes and failures, first from the administrative side and also as a technical assistant?
“What excited me the most were the training processes, a great emphasis was placed on that during most of the time as sports director, when that was my responsibility. It is a high point that is not seen immediately, hopefully the club will continue through this process and in the future we will have a large number of players trained by the team, achieving objectives and sporting success. To improve, surely many things about me as a leader, as a process manager. In the part as a coach, which was something that I really enjoyed in this last stage, I really discovered things in myself that I didn’t think existed in terms of creating training sessions, interacting with players, time on the pitch, always think about how to get those players to improve and have that best scenario for them to develop their full potential. I liked that a lot, I didn’t think I was so passionate about it”.
What is he going to dedicate himself to?
“To the family, my children, being able to take them to school, being able to go to the movies, be with my wife, do things that perhaps I couldn’t. The world of work is overwhelming, demanding, very long hours, weekends. More in our profession. That is one of my goals. In addition, I am studying the Pro License, I had already started it in January and other studies related to the game. Also read a lot, watch a lot of training and maybe travel.
Is it really that stressful to lead Nacional?
“It is a demanding club in which the details mark everything, you always have to have a vocation for improvement and excellence, being very good is not enough. The demand is in all areas. The rivals demand much more when they play against Nacional, so that requires a special preparation and character from the player, as well as from the leaders, the coaching staff, and the people who make the decisions in the management of the squad. All of that has to be done with precision to achieve the goal. And the communion of all these areas is also necessary for it to be achieved”.
Speaking of the case of Aldair, how to prevent the player from feeling permeated or pressured by social networks?
“You have to have character and a great personality if you want to include that content in your profession. You must know how to handle it, because if not, it can take you to emotional places that are not good. Just as they can put you up, they can take you down. In my case, as a player I always knew how to handle it, I didn’t have networks. Now I have one, but simply to observe things that I like, but I am not a person who gives openness to that, because emotionally it could affect me, so I try to push them away.
How then to control what the player consumes?
The club also has a responsibility to provide tools to shield them, that these people, more than anything the young people who are starting their careers and who are already immersed in that reality and need that recognition, have that protection, that they teach them to have the ability to control everything that people say, to be able to dominate it so that it does not affect you”.
As a reference for Nacional, what advice do you give the club to get out of this current situation?
“There are many people trying to do their best for the club, I have no doubt about that, everywhere. When I arrived at the club as a player, I felt that harmony and that is what we have to recover. Obviously it is always said that it is through results, but I believe that the club has the capacity to move forward, I am convinced that there are many people who want the best for the team and who have the skills to carry out a successful project. . Hopefully it will be quick, because the club really needs that kind of encouragement for everything it represents for the country. So I hope they make the right decisions, in everything that has to do with the sporting and administrative result”.
Nacional has won so much that it becomes very difficult to carry out a process, people immediately demand results…
“I remember that with the teacher Juan (Osorio), in the first tournament, we won the Cup and we were not so good in the home runs. It was perceived that there were already beginning to be doubts about his process, but then in the second half of 2013, in which we won the League, at that moment that victorious path would begin, and then all the decisions that the club made so that this was kept. Hopefully a project like this will come soon.
Does Colombian soccer have an unfair league? The one who scores the most points is not a champion…
“What I am going to say will sound like an excuse, because we didn’t get the result, but I really don’t like the design of the championship. Doesn’t help make it entertaining. There are many factors that are influencing that, it needs a reinvention of how it is being considered, in my opinion it is poorly designed”.
Did it hurt you a lot not to be able to participate in the second leg with Olimpia?
“That was the decision made by the managers. Surely they will have thought that it was the best for the club. We really thought the team had the ability to turn the series around, the feeling I shared with the guys after the first leg was that we had been far superior. The perception of what I saw in the Olimpia fans was that we were superior. I felt that obviously we were going to overcome them as locals. There we did not specify the number of options that we generated and that was something that happened to us during this process, we generated many options and we did not specify them, that clearly marked the course of the series, but I did feel great optimism about what the club, the team and the players could do”.
What was left for them to achieve in terms of team play?
“Obviously how to close the games, how to be more effective with the number of options that we generated, because we were clear about what we were capable of recreating with the players in terms of generating goal options, how they understood the game from that perspective. That was our feeling and our idea of games, proactive, going for the rival and every game we generated many options, but we were not as effective as we should have been so that the rival really felt that superiority”.
You don’t close the doors to Atlético Nacional. If in a few years they call you to contribute, will you return to the club without any problem?
“Yes, it is my home, I settled in Medellín. Nacional has given me everything, so as an institution it’s the place I long for, getting to the venue is magical, it’s like Disney for those who like soccer or at least for me, it was Disney. He enjoyed every day very much. If again I can be someone that the club values to carry out any type of work, related to what I know, I will be delighted. Nacional has given me a lot and I simply intend to give it all back”.
