04/07/2023 and las 06:30 CEST
The dean of Catalan football, promoted to Lliga Elit, is celebrating and at SPORT we review the past, present and future of a club that longs for its glory days
President Tony Herasthe sports director Albert Godthe technician Alex RedondoCaptain Sergio Garcia and the partner and journalist Carlos Losadayou authorized
Many turns have been made to the calendar since 1898, the year in which Gaspar Matas founded the Palamós. That turned this town of Baix Empordà into the soccer embryo of Cataloniawhere in substitute times there would be a diaspora of fervor for football that would spread throughout the Peninsula, giving rise to what is known today as the king of sports. This 2023 the team from Girona celebrates 125 years of history, something that only Athletic Club -also promoted in 1898- and Recreativo de Huelva (1889), the dean of Spanish football, can boast of. In the Palamós it is being a year of institutional celebration, which has been joined sportingly promotion to the Elite League as the main achievement.
This could be the germ of his rebirth, although looking nostalgically at that time of the late 80’s and early 90’s when three consecutive promotions took him from Regional to professional football. They were six years in a row in Second A, a period in which they also won the Copa Generalitat -current Copa Catalunya- in 1992. It lasted until 1995. Then the project began to collapse. -with an administrative decrease included due to debts with its players- that ended up leaving the team for the next two decades wandering mainly through the Third Division until hitting rock bottom with relegation to Primera Catalana in 2018. Five years later she has managed to get out of the well.
“Evidently not going up meant being left a step behind because the distance to the Third Division, which is where I think Palamós deserves to be as an institution, was two categories away. Staying in Primera Catalana was a very providential level. The objective is to take the club, with a reasonable time, to Thirdbut we know it will be difficult”, highlights Albert God, sports director of the entity and one of the main architects of the successful new project. Déu defended the club’s crest in all categories of grassroots football and wore the first team shirt for five years, from 2004 to 2009, as a left-back. Later he was at the Fundació as well as a first stage in his current position (2017-2019).
Albert Déu: “Staying in Primera Catalana was a very providential level”
“It is the team of my town and mine. That is why I am working to try to push it up, but being economically prudent, which in the end is what has always happened to us, not being… Now we want it to work in the long term and that’s why we created a local youth project. We don’t want to fall into the trap of looking for people with more experience, more name, more proven… we have shown that without this we can also be upwards”, he adds.
Exhaustive economic control
He “don’t stretch your arm further than your sleeve” -do not cover more than you can- that Albert Déu stands out is his main mantra and that of the entire club. This is how he stages it too Tony Heraspresident since 2022 and that he takes heart from his work in terms of “the way of treating people and the management” since “until recently it was a club always in debt and right now it is healthy. We don’t have any financial problems. and that for me is very important because it is linked to sports”, admits a Heras whose term expires next year and it is still not clear if he will stand for re-election.
“Being sixth we were happy and in the end we finished second. We are very happy with how the season has gone and I hope the next one will be the same”, he predicts about future participation in the Lliga Elit, for which he has a lot of respect. “I think it’s stronger than the Third Division because all the ‘cocks’ from all the groups have risen. At the moment we are not giving up anything, but competing comes first, ”she insists.
As in Albert Déu, in Toni Heras there is also a feeling of belonging that turns his work into a passion. “I was born in Palamós, I grew up playing in the Palamós shirt and it means everything to me. Having celebrated 125 years with a party like we did, having risen in category, having made the announcement of the municipality… as a Board it has been a great honor”, reflects on the club’s participation in the Festa Major de Palamós that took place from June 23 to 26. It is one of the various commemorative acts for its five quarters of a century, like the popular festival held in the parking area of the Estadi Municipal Palamós-Costa Brava on June 3. The icing on the cake should be a match against a higher category team. Names like Girona or Barça Atlètic have been heard, although for now nothing is closed.
Toni Heras: “If we all went hand in hand, Palamós could be a great team again”
Beyond sports, the main legacy that Toni Heras wants to leave is that of social and, above all, institutional peace. “Historically, the worst thing is the internal war that has always been in the Palamós, We don’t all go together and that’s very complicated. I don’t know why, but it costs. If we all went hand in hand, Palamós could be a great team again. It is a soccer town and more things could be done than are done, ”she laments.
A ‘Round’ Technician
This last season football has ‘turned on’ people again. About a thousand people used to come to the stadium spurred on by good football and good results from the team under the tutelage of Alex Redondo. The coach arrived at the end of November to replace Joan Bayona, who in eight games only added six points and that cost him his job. With Redondo everything came out paying homage to his last name: 180 degree turn, majestic streak with only one defeat in 22 days and 47 of 66 possible points that catapulted Palamós to the Elite League.
Àlex Redondo: “I really enjoyed it and it will be very difficult to repeat another season like this”
“It has been a hectic season, very intense. Having a deficit of points and we were interested in it being hectic to try to place ourselves with the small group of those chosen to go up and it has been a great season. I have enjoyed it a lot and it will be very difficult to be able to repeat another one like the one we have done this year”, says Àlex Redondo, who has also experienced his time in the past in the offices of clubs such as Sant Andreu, Badalona, Júpiter or UE Costa Brava, which that “gives you another perspective that when you are only an enterer you do not see the global vision.”
Even in the Catalan Primera, the team trained four times a week, a frequency rarely seen in the category. And it is that his project is very serious and has certain peculiarities. “We are looking for young players with enthusiasmthat they can take advantage of the Palamós platform to grow themselves and help us grow”.
The ‘cap’, incombustible
Within this profile there is above all a name that stands out for being the opposite. the right side Sergio Garcia He is the captain and will begin his ninth straight season at the club, in which he will turn 37. “It was a difficult start with many new additionsAs we got to know each other on and off the field, the team gained confidence and with the help and effort of the coaching staff and the club’s board of directors, a block was made. From then on, the results have accompanied us to the ascent ”, he explains.
Sergio García: “I am happy with the role I have in the team and proud to wear the bracelet”
Regarding the jump in category, the veteran defender assures that “the challenge will be to continue with the same dynamics as at the end of last season” and, in the long run, he believes that “It would be very nice to see a historic club like Palamós in higher divisions again, little by little. He is the dean of Catalonia and it is a pride to wear this shirt for so many years. Dealing with the people from the club has always been good, that makes you feel at home and not listen to possible offers. It would certainly be an honor to retire at the Palamós”, he confesses, despite the fact that he still has gasoline left: “I feel good, looking forward to starting the preseason. I am happy with the role I have in the team, proud to wear the bracelet and help young people with my experience“.
Sergio García was the first to seal his continuity for the next course and, although it is still early, Àlex Redondo sees himself on the right track. “We have been lucky to renew all the players we wanted. I am very happy with Albert’s work, also with the additions made so far. If we compete, we will surely be among the top six or eight by the end of the season”, he predicts.
Despite having been there for a little over half a year, the Barcelona coach assures that he has already perceived that “it is a different club” and he predicts a hopeful future for him. “If Palamós and its social mass have a little patience at a sporting level, It is a club to be able to reach national categories. I don’t know if Primera RFEF but close for sure. It is a football town, a healthy club, with facilities very close to professional football. It has many of the things that with patience this project of three or five years has to be close to professional footballin Primera or Segunda Federación”.
Illusion among the fans
The truth is that in the world of football, cabals are of little use. The results tend to be the judges of the projects, and in this case they are endorsing -and by far- that of Àlex Redondo. His figure and that of Albert Déu are especially praised by Carlos Losada, one of the little more than half a thousand members of the gualdiazul entity and who, as a journalist, covered the games of his most golden age for the ‘Cadena SER’ during the 90s. After a long time, it seems that the illusion has permeated the fans again.
Carlos Losada: “This journey through the desert could have been broken this season”
“The Palamós has gone through a journey through the desert for many years. Losing the Second A category as it was lost, which was a real disaster, marked a before and after. The descent brought a lot of frustration and things didn’t go well. Everything went from bad to worse, but this journey could have been broken this season, ”he celebrates.
“If everything had gone as it should from the beginning, perhaps now we would be in the Third Division in the place of L’Escala. The second round has been sensational, impressive. When the team responds, the people respond. And this year it has been like that”, adds Losada, who has spent almost three decades in the ‘Cadena COPE’, where he is head of News. His work does not prevent him from going to the stadium every game Sundayepicenter of the generator of enthusiasm that has been launched for months.
He experienced the zenith of the entity firsthand: “There are many good memories such as the promotion to professional football, that was impressive with the 4-0 defeat of Arnedo. I remember great players like Puche II, Roberto Martínez…”. He longs for those times, despite the fact that his sights are now focused on tomorrow: “You have to look forward. We have a team, we have a future, we have a sports project, we have a town that is getting infected with football again and we have a club that is very much alive and very present and eager for great things.”.
Hopefully no one is going to beat them, and there are wickers enough not to think that Palamós can repeat a great season again and place itself again in the last step of the national category. It would be the perfect culmination on the way to its 126th anniversary. The dean of Catalan football has many pages full of history and even more to write.
2023-07-03 08:18:00
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