Listening to Eusebio Sacristán speak is a real pleasure. And if the technician from La Seca undresses after the worst setback of his life as he did in a talk with the Valladolid Press Association, the document is authentic gold. The former player of Real Valladolid, FC Barcelona and Celta de Vigo and former coach of Barcelona B, Real Sociedad, Celta or Girona, touched on various personal and sporting issues and assured that “it is the mentality that allows us to meet objectives” and the one that is helping him to recover, after serious accident suffered on December 30, 2020 and that changed his life radically.
Eusebio Sacristán suffered a fallon the eve of New Year’s Eve, which gave him a head trauma for which he was in an induced coma for three weeks, at the Hospital Clínico de Valladolid and, later, he moved to Barcelona to a clinic specialized in brain damage to start your recovery process. This Wednesday he has participated in an act of the Valladolid Sports Press Association, where he has been supported by journalists and authorities such as the mayor of the city, Óscar Puente, representatives of different clubs, and by his family -his daughter Seema and his sister Tere-, a fundamental pillar in the evolution of the former player.
If there is a word that can define the intervention of Use It has been “generosity”, because he has recounted, openly and with emotion on the surface, the process he has lived through since he suffered the accident to date and that has not yet ended, since he continues his treatment with optometrists, therapists and speech therapists “I didn’t feel prepared to talk to anyone, and it has been a tough process, since at the beginning I was not able to communicate and that has made me very sad and feel very bad. I didn’t know what my life was going to be like, if I was going to be able to have a normal conversation again. But 25 months have passed and things have been changing,” she explained.
As he has recognized, during this time, he has thought about “what was important and everything went through recovering well, “having a normal conversation with others”, which he has been achieving with his friends and family “because staying with them helps to be more positive and optimistic”. In this sense, he has insisted that, just as it happened to him as a child, when it was clear to him that he wanted to be a footballer and he prepared himself for it, “the important thing was to have that strong mentality, look for the goal and fight for it”.
Thus, he recalled that, to achieve his goal of being a professional player, he came from his town, La Seca, to live in Valladolid, at the age of 11 and, at 15, Ramón Martínez – deputy to the general director of Real Madrid and, for At that time, sports director of Real Valladolid- saw him play in Pedrajas and signed him for the blanquivioleta club. “The first year I didn’t play any games. I suffered and cried a lotbut I continued to keep my mentality firm, and at the age of 19 I went up to the first team, where the same thing happened to me again, but I once again made use of that desire to become a great professional and win titles and, when I was at Atlético from Madrid, Barcelona came for me, with Johan Cruyff as coach”, he related.
He then began his best stage as a player, achieving a multitude of titles with the Barça club, where he began his career as coach with Rijkaard, to achieve, as his second, another European title, and now he maintains that path, that fight for “being well again and having the ability to relate to others in a completely normal way”, he said. He thinks that “When things happen in life, it’s for a reason” and, although it is true that, for a long time, he has wondered why he had that accident, he has understood that he had to learn from that moment, to recover things in his life and, gradually, he is overcoming challenges and meeting goals.
Always humble, boasting of his origins, Sacristán has garnered the affection of all those he has found in his path and, although he is not aware of the magnitude of that affection he provokes, he knows that many have been concerned. for his condition, and that they have shown him their friendship. Among them are Juan Carlos Rodriguez“the greyhound”, a former teammate at Real Valladolid and Barcelona, and Peter Paul Crespoalma mater of the Eusebio Sacristán Foundation in which Juan Carlos actively collaborates, which was created with the aim of “helping the children of Valladolid to be able to play football”.
“It’s getting a amazing job”, added Eusebio Sacristán, who confessed that when he was training Girona, with whom he was relegated to the Second Division “it was the fear of going down, precisely, that made it impossible to maintain the category, because that was transmitted to the players, and they lost the last nine games”. That’s why he admires technicians like batchwith whom he has been able to speak, and to whom he has asked what he did to make his players happy, “because for a coach what is important is not only the way of playingbut the 25 players will feel good y joinedbecause it is what makes things go well”.
