“I grew up watching soccer when it almost didn’t exist in the United States.” That of Pellegrino Matarazzo (Wayne, New Jersey, 48 years old), the new coach of Real Sociedad, is an unusual story, marked by emigration, identity and a passion for football that was born very early. He became truly fond of the beautiful game by watching Diego Armando Maradona’s Naples, when he was still a child and living in the United States. “My dreams as a child were about football, I grew up watching football on the small television in my parents’ room. I am from the time when Maradona played for Naples. That’s how I learned football, watching it and talking to my father, because in the United States it was almost not considered a sport, but I had a passion for it because of my Italian roots,” recalls the new tenant of the Real Sociedad bench, which this Sunday hosts Barcelona (9:00 p.m., Movistar), in an interview given to the official club media.
The new realistic coach was not able to make much of a career as a player. He tried playing football, first in Italy, but, in his opinion, he did not work with the right agents. “They promised me things, but I never had the chance to do a test,” he confirms. Then he returned to the United States and there, precisely, a German friend saw him play and asked him if he wanted to go to Germany. He didn’t think about it. “I started playing in the fourth division, when I was 23 years old, I was a little too old for it, and I ended up staying in Germany for 25 years,” he thanks. It was precisely there, in the Bundesliga, where, to date, he has experienced his best moments as a coach, taking, for example, Stuttgart from Second to First and later to Europe.
In this history of German football, precisely, he left “a great memory” as Gonzalo Castro (Wuppertal, Germany, 38 years old) assures. “He is very close to the player. I don’t want to say like a father, but he is a good friend. He commands respect, yes, but he knows how to talk to the players. He knows how to win the affection of the players and that is very important,” analyzes the former German international for EL PAÍS. “When he arrived at Stuttgart, he was not well known and did very well. I imagine that there in San Sebastián no one would know him and that there would be doubts about how he was going to play. Real against Atlético de Madrid played very well and had one last chance to win the game and then won in Getafe, a always difficult field,” highlights Gonzalo Castro, an admirer of the Matarazzo teams’ play. “He is a coach who looks at and takes great care of the details. He is very calm, but he has his part in which he gets angry. He is a very sincere person. He gives a lot of importance to the details, something that I really liked when we met at Stuttgart,” he remarks.
Julian Nagelsmann has played a fundamental role in the training of Pellegrino Matarazzo. “He learned a lot from him,” says Castro. In 2017, the current Germany coach opened the door to Hoffenheim for him to join, first, the base structure and, a year later, as an assistant to the first team, with which he competed in the group stage of the Champions League. In December 2019 his big opportunity arrived: taking over as Stuttgart’s coach. Gonzalo Castro was not surprised by his landing in the Spanish League, although he did think that his destiny was going to be the Premier League. “His goal was to reach the big leagues. He is very intelligent. He speaks four languages (English, Italian, German and a little French) and now I am convinced that he is going to learn Spanish quickly. He is very international and adapts very well to the environment,” highlights the former Leverkusen player, a team where he played for 11 seasons.
In his opinion, “his model combines well with Spanish football. He is a guy who wants to play football. At Stuttgart we achieved it with the 5-3-2, but he always wanted to play the ball. Now, with the players he has at Real Sociedad he is going to do it. Surely. In a League as physical as the German one is always, the fact that he tried to play football and succeeded speaks very well of him. And he will do it at Real”, confides the former German footballer. Another former pupil of his, goalkeeper Alexander Stolz (Pforzheim, Germany, 42 years old), goes further in this sense about Matarazzo’s football principles: “Tactically, he is very precise for all the game situations that can occur: from the ball’s own release, through transitions, to pressure situations. And mentality is, of course, a fundamental pillar,” he states emphatically.
The former TSG Hoffenheim goalkeeper thinks that in Real, a youth team, he can respond in the best way because “he has a very good instinct for the group, both with young talents and experienced players,” he emphasizes. In his opinion, the American “has everything, especially a lot of energy, which is contagious. That is key: you have to burn for this job, and he does it,” confirms the former goalkeeper. He understands, in this sense, that Real “will never” be a restricted team because “it gives freedom to the players on the field, especially in positions where it is needed.” And he remembers Kramarić, “who often had a freer role,” Stolz recalls.
This Sunday Hansi Flick’s Barcelona arrives at Anoeta. The culé team will measure the effect of Pellegrino Matarazzo, who has fallen on his feet in San Sebastián. “Motivating? He is not a real Klopp, but he has a lot of charisma. When a team, for example, lacks that, he notices it, feels it and transmits it so that the team can turn it around,” explains Gonzalo Castro. For now, the formula works in Donostia.
