Oman Coaching: Vitoria Trainer’s Paradise Experience

It all started in the summer of 2015. Rather, it all started a second time. Until then he had developed a modest career in youth football for several Alava teams such as San Martín or Marianistas and also in the Athletic youth team. He had been on the bench since he was 15, his vocation. But that summer day a motorcycle accident forced him to stop. “I spent three years without being able to walk,” he remembers now, a decade later, in a telephone conversation with EL CORREO almost 6,000 kilometers from his beloved Vitoria. His left leg took the worst part. The consequence even today is Sudeck Syndrome, a chronic disease caused by the injury that generates very intense chronic pain. But that has been far from stopping him.

In reality, part of his current life is born as a result of that break. Because then he was able to study, soak up football to expand his script. «If at that moment I focused on training it was because I was clear about what I wanted to do.

It was a risky decision and many people did not understand it, but I have been clear about it from the beginning,” he confirms. He also went in search of heat, the ideal climate to recover. He found it in the Canary Islands. “I noticed the pain less intensely and it allowed me to live more,” he explains. There he was finally able to transfer what he learned in books to the grass.

Marino from Tenerife offered him the possibility of joining his coaching staff and he jumped at it. Although everything was a continuous process of adaptation. «I still remember with them that when I trained them I used to fall due to my injury. We laugh. People who didn’t know me have given me the opportunity,” he recalls. “I don’t expect big leaps, but I do expect to build small bridges,” he adds. His philosophy of life.

That modest step took him to the Armenian Lory for a few months. «It was a very beautiful process and I learned a lot by being in contact with other mentalities. It’s something I’m looking for, to be able to train myself in different ways of thinking. The Canary Islands have a more Central American mentality, Armenia is the east of Europe… it is a good thing to be able to adapt for the future, to be empathetic,” he explains. From there, to Cyprus, to the ENAD Polis Chrysohous. «It is a wonderful country. One of the places I would love to return to. “I was delighted, very comfortable,” he highlights. During that time he was also able to travel to learn methodologies in Poland or Hungary. But it was in Africa where he found his place.

In Egypt he found “a house and a family”, first at Sporting Castle Club and then at Asmant Assiut. From these two stages he draws a conclusion: “They revere football.” Even the smallest one, the one far from the spotlight. «We were lucky to eliminate an important team in the Cup and it gave me a lot of media relevance. I arrived in a region with 20 million inhabitants, near where Salah is. People climbed over the stadium stands. “We were hallucinating,” he confesses. It was two and a half years in total. From that time, the coach from Vitoria values ​​above all the good results that his youth work has offered in subsequent courses and the certainty that there was something in that region that captured him.

That’s why he looked for his next destination nearby, in Oman. “It arises through results,” he clarifies. He arrived at Saham FC, where he encountered a reality somewhat different from the one he knew in Egypt. «You have to adapt. They are Arabs but completely different from the Egyptians. You have to look inward a lot, the group is very important. “We have been doing things little by little,” he analyzes. He took the team – the lowest budget in the competition – in January, six points from relegation and signed a comfortable stay with only three defeats recorded in a ten-game journey. “We were the revelation team of the league,” he confirms. Another result and another bridge. This time, Sohar SC. «It is a fairly family club, with many fans. One of the two or three most,” he explains.

It’s been there since August and things seem to be going well. “People are very happy, they bet very hard,” he celebrates. It is not easy because there is a latent threat for each coach. «The trigger is very fast. If you lose three games you are out, you have to work with that pressure,” he warns. He knows how to do it, because at the moment his team is fifth and has qualified for the semifinals of one of the country’s cups. On the verge of the first title in half a century of the entity’s history. But González de Heredia asks for calm. «A lot of excitement has been raised. Although we have to keep our feet on the ground. There are many battles left,” he warns.

In Oman he has found “an incredible country” in which he sees parallels with his land. «A housing structure is maintained, you cannot go above certain heights. “You are very focused on having everything very green, as we do in Vitoria,” he illustrates. «The cities are self-sustaining, with their own gardens, which help maintain the same shade as the houses. They are doing very well. The south is Costa Rica type and the north is arid. The beaches are kilometers long and inside it is mountainous. “It is very, very safe,” he finishes drawing. Without the cold of his land, which he misses “every day.” Who knows if the future will take him back home. For now, think about the present. In another chapter of the dream into which he launched himself with little more than a backpack and an injury to recover from. But now he and his football are flying without fear.