I write intentionally before knowing the outcome of the match in Fuenlabrada. I say intentionally because if I want anything it is to free this reflection from the tyranny of the results.
I’m not worried that three or four hundred people gathered last Sunday in the outskirts of El Molinón with their banners or that they took advantage of the tension of the meeting to chant at the end “Fernández go now, resign directive”. People are free even to make mistakes.
Nor am I going to go into the absurdity of the request. It would be like concentrating in front of Pepín’s winch to demand his departure because we don’t like the menu or the cider palu.
What worries me is that the sane and silent majority remain unmoved in the face of injustice.
Compassion is a beautiful word. The meaning is clear: suffer with. It is undeniable that this season has not spared suffering – to the point and to the extent that football, the most important of the least important things, is or can be – for the sporting parish. But I assure you, that no one has suffered more than President Fernández, because to the suffering of the heart he has added that other, if you want more prosaic but real, which is risking his money and his assets. No one wanted more than him, nor did anyone work harder for it, that the season end with a sporting success. On top of that, Fernández has suffered, this time in the most important of the most important things, the loss of a loved one.
I think that against the “resignation directive” we should use the “suffer with”. Perhaps there are those who prefer that Sporting cease to be from Gijón to be the toy of the capitalist tycoon on duty (I don’t know how an emir would carry the coat of arms of Gijón with Pelayo and the Victoria Cross or the Santina at the exit of the locker room tunnel!). But the truth is that Javier Fernández is an example of good work and his management is highly valued in professional football. Not only in relation to the first team but in the entire scope of the entity such as the fantastic Mareo expansion project.
It is true that the results have been disastrous. But in all business – as in all facets of life – you have to have a pinch of luck. What to say then about a game like soccer where the small distance between hitting the post or kissing the net can change destiny. The difference between success and failure is negligible: the one that separated Stuani’s shot -only against Cuellar- from the goal. Certainly, the team improved, but who would have remembered the game after conceding another goal in injury time? That is why it is important to be humble. In soccer, two plus two does not always have to be four.
But more than the virtue of humility, I want to appeal to another one without which it is difficult for the others to exist. I mean honesty. It is not honest to judge the decisions of the president after the past bull. Above all, those decisions that we all applaud and cheer because at the time they were adopted they had all the appearance of being the best.
In the strictly sporting aspect, Fernández was the great and last defender, first, of Preciado and, later, of Abelardo when the stands demanded his resignation. Yes Yes. At the first change of the 2016-17 season, those of “go now and resign” had forgotten the epic rise of the Pitu gourds in 2014-15. The same ones that in 2019 added the usual “resignation” to the “José Alberto, José Alberto” that they had chanted only a year before.
But, after last year’s campaign, on the verge of the play-off, there was nothing else to do but renew Gallego. Changing it, it was already seen that it was not a solution, but it would not be for patience. Finally, now we have Abelardo. A coach with a first-class band -and cache- and one of the few who, once the season is over, can give us back the illusion of a new project for the next one. But the return of Abelardo is merit, and not demerit, of Fernández.
The commitment to the quarry could not have been clearer with the renewals, with the consequent economic effort of Pedro Diaz (2025) and the internationals Grajera (2024), Gaspar (2025) and Guille Rosas (2025). Perhaps none of them has been good for internationality, the last one badly affected by injuries, but you have to be very advantaged to blame the president for it.
The effort to keep the most important players in the squad and incorporate new ones (Villalba) has also been enormous.
I don’t know where are those who claimed that they were going to make money with Djuka after the 22 goals of last season (unless they are now criticizing precisely the fact that he has not been sold!). Then it turned out not to be the striker’s best year -nor was it for another “franchise” player like Mariño- but here there is no fault on the part of the board either, which, if economic benefit prevailed (as the spread mantra repeats), I could have advantageously sold both footballers.
Not only that. When the dream of promotion began to fade, the president did not give up. He came out Jony’s name for the winter market. We all thought that it was an unrealizable dream but the president achieved it. Of course, as he said, a pinch of luck is needed (or at least tons of bad luck don’t fall on us): a stomp in a fortuitous set with a partner, a broken finger and goodbye. Is the president to blame too?
For all this, I only ask good sportinguistas for two things: one, the respect we owe to all people; two, a bit of honesty and understanding, that no longer the affection he deserves, he is having a hard time, for our president Javier Fernández.
Finally, I hope and trust that all the difficulties of this season will make us all stronger (management, players, media, fans) and that with our president, the board and Abelardo as great captain, we will fight and reach the next the return to the highest category of Spanish football for a new and glorious golden age of Real Sporting de Gijón.
