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Alfred Julbe: “My basketball always wants to consider the spectator”

With sixty years and a loaded backpack of experiences in the world of basketball on his shoulders, Alfred Julbe he goes back to work every day in Fontajau. A pavilion built in large part, thanks to the sporting and social growth of Valvi Girona that he coached between 1989 and 1993, and which is now the scene of a new, and unprecedented, challenge for Julbe: to lead a team of ‘female elite. “I still really like training. And just be doing it very seriously. I can’t do it in half. Even today when I’m 60, I really enjoy training and I do it without thinking about anything in the long run. Only in the short term “, explains Julbe, who, with the club’s commission to” play better “, has relieved Èric Surís at the head of Spar Girona, with whom, for the time being, he has won very clearly in both first matches. “There are aspects that need to be explained exactly the same in men’s basketball as in women’s basketball, which I think are the majority because it’s exactly the same basketball, and there are others, more nuanced, that you have to do yourself.” analyze in a different way “, says Julbe who is happy to direct players of the talent and experience of Laia Palau and Sonja Vasic to make a basketball that, in the way of thinking of the coach,” always wants to take into account the spectator ” .

Play basketball well

“Playing basketball well is playing very close to your highs, very close to what can give you performance. Then there are the nuances like, for example, that I can say I want to be very mindful of the viewer. This is my school, the school in Badalona and the school of those of us who liked Johan Cruyff’s Barça football. It’s my way of thinking, but another may say that to be efficient you want to play with very long possessions. It wouldn’t be my way, but it can also be efficient and play basketball well. But the first part, playing close to your highs should always be there, as well as being physically able to defend well. Then here, in defense, there would also be the nuances of pushing more or being much more under basket, and only under basket, because lengthening the field, the speed of play and the speed of thought also falls within my way of thinking ».

Aesthetics versus efficiency

“Combining efficiency and thinking about the public is the only way. If you only think of the public leaving efficiency aside, then you’re the Harlem Globetrotters who don’t compete and even take home the rival. This is not what you are looking for. In the case of the Spar Girona, if I think, as many people think, that the work of the summer makes a type of players come here for years that always allow you to scratch very close to the titles. It’s about combining that game stamp you want with the efficiency of fighting to win titles. People believe that when we talk about making a basketball that thinks of the spectator we only mean the attack, but there are many defensive actions that also have this ability to attract the fan. Sometimes a bit of pedagogy has to be done to say that in defensive work and in intensity there are also things that can be enjoyed. What happens is that sometimes at a certain level of the league the prize that is generated is excessive, for example in Friday’s game when we were sticking and sticking in defense, a kind of loss was generated in the rival that when we play against Salamanca or Valencia will not be the same. We need to be able not to need the quick, tangible reward to keep working and insisting. ”

Changes in just two games

“I’ve taken the base of what was in the attack schemes and the changes have come down to more conceptual details and demands that didn’t require a lot of training to put it into practice. I left things that are not enough to explain them, because they required more training and we will introduce them. It has been a fusion between what was already there and what little I have contributed. In the end the basis is the individual talent and ability of each player. The difference should be continuity in work, not relaxing and being able not to lower the intensity when a difference is achieved. And keep going, and keep going … like we did these two days. That’s why there are quick changes, no long stays on track to maintain intensity. Now, then, Sonja Vasic will use her resources and will try to take the ball to where she is most dangerous; Laia Palau has always been behind her back and will not stop doing it. It’s very important to do it when things don’t go well and that’s where I think we can grow the most. It is allowed to fail or have days with fewer hits, but it is not allowed to relax or not always go to the maximum. And that’s why there is also the work of the younger players to claim their prominence and, also, the intelligence of the group, which in this case is a lot, of wanting to finish the game as satisfied as Friday after having gone to the maximum until the end (victory by 35 points of difference against the Bembibre) ”.

Between Laia Palau, Sonja Vasic, Chelsea Gray ….

“The ideas of how to play basketball well, for example the concept of how to defend on the low post on the opposite side, of players with this history, will be similar to the ones you propose to them. The way to run the counterattack, the way to get the first pass … In the years they have played at the highest level they have already done as I propose now. It’s all about going in the same direction and enjoying the history and el background that these players have. I take advantage of everything these players have done in their career, because the coach participates by adapting to the potential of each player. The better the plasticine to make more things, the material, it is much more pleasant to work. Both boys and girls. When you have, like I have had at Barça, Rodions Kurucs and Luka Samanic who are in the NBA or Atoumane Diagne with a height of 2.15 … everything is very close to the maximum level. And on the same team with Sonja Vasic and Laia Palau. Of course you can do a very good job of bringing someone to their maximum, but if they are more physically limited your work looks much less. As a coach. the more good players you have, the more enjoyable your job is. ”

The step of taking on a women’s team

“I don’t know if I would have taken the step of taking on a women’s team if the proposal hadn’t been from Spar Girona. Honestly, I don’t know. Our profession is very strange and I have the name a little burned, for having started very early or I don’t know for what other reasons, but I basically have it burned nearby. Although last year I coached Limoges, due to the high appreciation that Crawford Palmer (sporting director of the Limousin club) has for me, everything that comes out is always a long way off. I find it hard to accept them, many times I say I don’t see them and others I accept them, but I don’t know what I would have said about another offer to coach a women’s team other than Girona. When you get an offer you have to ask yourself in private, within yourself, if what matters more to you weighs more than that proposal, and to me many things about professional sport that has come a moment that I weigh, or what stimulates you the challenge of continuing to improve every day. And I often tell people around me. I still really enjoy training. And just be doing it very seriously. I can’t do it in half. Even today when I’m 60, I really enjoy training and I do it without thinking about anything in the long run. Only in the short. When I get too excited I go wrong. I was very good at Barça B and when, between Sito Alonso and Pesic, they put me to coach the first team in the match against Maccabi, you get excited and at the end of the year … Because the most unionists thought who tweeted too much. Now when I train, I only think about enjoying the day to day and not what can come “,

Should you train differently in men than in women?

“There are aspects that need to be explained exactly the same in men’s basketball as in women’s basketball, which I think are the majority because it’s exactly the same basketball, and there are others, more nuanced, that you have to do yourself.” analyze differently. For example, the opposite side of the defense of p ick and roll, where Jasikevicius’s Zalguiris and Obradovic’s Fenerbahçe would be the benchmarks in how to position themselves, as I’m still studying if this is the best way to do it in feminine when I had no doubts in masculine. When criticizing matches at 50 to 60 points where people say they haven’t had a chance watching them it’s because they haven’t made good use of the spaces. I think that in the first two games of the Spar Girona we have started to see that we can make good use of the spaces without having trained much, because the level in the squad with the explanation can already be assimilated. But when a higher level of demand is reached by rivals, we need to have reached our maximums in training. That’s why in the first two games, people are surprised that I’ve played minutes with two fives (Resingerova and Labuckiene) or with two bases (Palau and Gray) because they’re things that coaching doesn’t do little, or I can do with less sense because the two five would be defended by two four, and that is why we do it in the matches ».

The trajectory of Uni Girona

“I don’t know if what Girona has done all these years is valued enough in Girona. In general, you could also hear this in Badalona and many other places, everyone says it is not valued enough. I think yes, that people are very much in the case of what the Uni does and has done. Another thing, and now with the pandemic even more, is to convince people to subscribe, but I think there is an idea that the Spar Girona takes the name of the city everywhere to a very high level. But I don’t have enough talent to gauge whether this trajectory has had the recognition it deserves. I don’t know how to measure it. Personally, I was not surprised by all that the club has achieved because I know them, I have been inside some years bringing the technique of the first team in the mornings and a junior in one of these stages that I only have offers from far away and I’m lazy to take them, and knowing them well doesn’t surprise me at all what the club has done ».

The challenge of the Euroleague

“I still have to study the Euroleague well, I haven’t hidden that I don’t know enough about the players or the teams. The Euroleague is a job I still have to do and I can’t talk about these teams, but from what they tell me, they will have options if we reach the level of intensity that the other teams will have, but above all the ability of intelligent basketball. ligent, ability to pass, speed of thought … These are aspects in which we can stand out in the Euroleague ».

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