The Movistar post Patxi Vila is smaller than the one it was four years ago
We will surely be unfair in some of the words we dedicate to Patxi Vila’s period in charge of the Movistar Team’s performance.
I am sure of this, as well as that our perception will not be 100% off track either.
I had known for days that Patxi Vila was going to leave MovistarI think he returns to Bora, where he came from, and where he earned his reputation working in the golden age of Peter Sagan.
It is that news that in a certain way you expect, because honestly, what has been improvement, I haven’t seen much.
Although the assessment sounds harsh, it is also worth qualifying and arguing a little about its basis.
Patxi Vila has been responsible for performance in the most complicated time, I believe, in the history of Abarca, the company that has been managing all the sponsorships prior to Movistar.
The decapitalization of the team’s talent that had been occurring for seven or eight years had a twist in that winter before the explosion of the pandemic with the sudden departure of Mikel Landa, Nairo Quintana and Richard Carapaz, in a very hard drink for the leadership of the blue team, which expected that the Ecuadorian, current winner of the Giro, will take the reins.
Enric Mas came, who has never performed at the level of those who left, and Alejandro Valverde continued in a team that looked very affected by the pandemic, the stoppage and the revolution that has followed.
This whole train catches Patxi Vila moving and stopping the bleeding was already commendable.
However, the invisibility into which the team has fallen – its Tour and Vuelta this year have been very improvable – could be attributed to its management, in which it has had good assets but always unrelated to positions of honor.
The feeling of comfort that the telephone team gives off, I think, was often proven last year when they found themselves up to their necks in water with the threat of relegation.
Then, with the added pressure, everyone started to walk and even win, Lazkano exploded, Aranburu added, Enric Mas attacked something and even won until García Cortina.
Last year started well, until the pavé classics, then more of the same, like a flat encephalogram in which Patxi’s work has not shined and has gone unnoticed in big events.
I will talk about the year 2023 of Movistar, here I wanted to express this feeling about Patxi Vila, who arrived at a team with a greater reputation than the one he left, and that is not only his thing, those departures and the money for signings have had to do with it. , but the raw material has not been bad, I simply think that they have not been able to take advantage of it, because when it was necessary, I already believe that the team was up to the task.
Image: @Movistar_Team
2023-10-17 11:30:28
#salaries #cyclists #light #years #big #stars
