Manuel Pellegrini addresses 1973 military coup ahead of Supercopa de España: ‘A large part of the country understood that something had to be done’

Pellegrini shows his deepest version. In Saudi Arabia, as the Spanish Super Cup dispute approaches, for which he must face Barcelona, ​​he takes stock of his life. Remember, for example, the shift he took from engineering to football. “My personal demand is high and my interest in learning is growing. It is a matter of education and training. If I had switched to the construction side today, I would still be there, because my biological age always asks me to improve myself. Being a coach was the best decision I made in my life. I like the building. I devoted myself to it for 14 years, I made houses, buildings… but I was a player for fifteen years, I combined my career as an engineer with that of a footballer and there was a moment when I had to make a decision. My vocation was to be a coach. I did what I loved. The world gained a person who was satisfied with what he was doing,” he told Spanish media ABC from Riyadh.

It even reveals a frustrated vocation. “My intention was to study medicine and be a footballer. He was a student with good grades. In the last four years I averaged 6.5 out of 7, but the exception was I did a horrible test and I was out of meds so I had to wait a year so I went to engineering and never applied to med again I think he would have been a good doctor. My great-grandfather was a well-known doctor and my son has a successful career as a traumatologist. If you devote yourself with passion, love your job and are demanding, normally you do well in your job,” he says.

The hindsight includes his football career. “I played 500 games at the University of Chile and I acquired a formative part there that I try to improve every day. I evolved according to what football did because we cannot stay in the past. Football has become very professional during all this time”. And he even admits the problems he encountered in his first years as a technician, related to the management of the dressing room. was because of my scientific nature, as an engineer. I am a very demanding person with myself. I still believe that I made a mistake and that I have to improve, but I have a personality that my neighbor does not have. I wanted to instill my personality and outlook on life in a group, and that was not to be the case. As a manager, you must individualize the personality of each footballer and find the best way to unite them to create a competitive group that fights for the common goals of the team. Imposing my personality generated rejection,” he acknowledges.

Pellegrini is recognized as an inveterate reader. “I don’t count, but of course. Since I learned at the age of five, I have never stopped reading. Now I read five books in parallel. I like the current novel and the historical novel. It’s a passion that comes from my parents. My father taught himself. He learned civil construction on his own, without going to university, and created his own business, which was very successful. And my mother has always been a reader. I remember she was coming home from school and reading at home. He instilled in us a love of literature, of knowledge. Between them, a very hardworking father and a very educated mother, I create a habit as a boy and it does not get lost, ”he values.

This exercise allows him to analyze the historical evolution of Chile, which gives rise to his most controversial review. “I saw very different Chilis. In my childhood, it was a very poor country, in which it was very difficult to move forward. In 1970, when I entered university, the government of Salvador Allende arrived, the first democratically elected communist president. During these three years, the country suffered a total catastrophe. Nearly 1,000% inflation and it was very divided. Then came a military coup, which is always unfortunate, but at that time a large part of the country understood that something had to be done because otherwise we were heading towards a civil war. The dictatorship, of course, brings things that are not justifiable, but it was necessary to live the parameters that were lived at that time in Chile. 16 years later, Pinochet called an election and was overwhelmingly called upon to leave. Then came thirty years during which Chile made great progress. It went from a poor country to a developed country in all economic indices, but in the last ten years there has been a lot of corruption, the country has relaxed and a political class has deteriorated which did not know how lead the country as before. Then came the social epidemic of 2019, which stopped the country for three years and during all this time they did not agree on the new constitution. The diagnosis carried by the political class is erroneous and there is a deterioration of the economy and security. This is why this social epidemic has occurred. This would be my objective analysis of Chile, as I am neutral. I have no political color, ”he underlines.

The former River Plate and San Lorenzo coach is refocusing on football. Punctually, in the game. “I like it much better today. It is more prepared scientifically, nutritionally, tactically and in terms of football. The players are more professional, more active and play faster. Today’s football today is very competitive, which maybe wasn’t the case a few years ago,” he says.

There, he defines what it is for him to practice it the right way. “For me, playing football well is winning. Another thing is the different ways of playing, which can be won with all but the teams who don’t come out to win, who only want a chance to win. 1-0, we can’t compare them with the teams that are going to win and have twelve chances. I don’t like selfish teams, that’s why I’m happy that Argentina were champions in Qatar. All the World Cup came out and most importantly the final to win as France waited ten behind to catch a counterattack This only changed when France wanted to play from 1980 and a game spectacular was organized for all football lovers”.

He also remembers the wounds left by his time at Real Madrid, although he considers them closed. “Absolutely. If I had continued in Madrid, which I would have loved, I would have skipped my time in Malaga. I stayed there for three unforgettable years. We qualified for the Champions League, we reached the quarter-finals and the city dedicated itself to the team. It even changed my personal life, I bought a house in Marbella and I go there as soon as I can”, he says.

Compared to his departure from meringues, he clarifies certain aspects. “A lot of people talk about Alcorcón or the Champions League, but the reality is that there were differences from when I arrived regarding the composition of the team. The president wanted to go his own way and there was no relationship with him anymore. I started in Madrid in July and in August I already knew that I would not continue there. We had eight or nine strikers and only two creative midfielders, Guti and Granero. My football is based on creative players. I like teams that have players who play and attackers who finish. Despite everything, we scored 96 points and 102 goals in La Liga”, he reveals.

In this sense, he criticizes the management model of the White House. “A coach’s opinion must be taken into consideration and I have never been called to a meeting to ask me what I thought of the squad that was being put together. It was Florentino Pérez’s way of working and if he wants to work like that, there is nothing to say, because he was the president. It hurt me, of course, but I don’t have a bad relationship with him. I left Madrid with 70% of the support of madridismo and, as I told you before, that door closed for me, but the window of Malaga opened”, he explains.

At the most current level, it is about the achievement of the Spanish Super Cup, in which Betis will face Barcelona this Friday, in Arabia. “My thoughts are as follows. Look, the political class has long ceased to govern for countries. They seek to make their own profit. Instead, football unites. There are so many things that divide life that I wish football could unite everywhere. What was experienced in the World Cup in Qatar was a complete union and the economic gain that was behind it, so important, will be obtained in the same way regardless of the place. Football must be maintained as a unifying element because otherwise China, Russia, Arabia, Qatar would have to be eliminated… Football is not the task of solving human rights problems. On the contrary, if you use football for that, you will disunite more. How many things unite human beings today? Football, the Olympics and anything that has that fun role. History has always been invasion, slavery, feminism…it has always been disunited. The history of coexistence between human beings is bloody. The world has always been a hyena,” he points out.

In this plane, he talks again about Chile and its social problems. “Football is not going to solve the part that the political class has to do. He has neither the capacity nor the authority to do so. The function of football is to unite. Chile today is very divided, but the team plays, the Reds, everyone supports it and I don’t know if its neighbor is a communist or Pinochet’s. It doesn’t matter,” he said.

There is also a mention of the Catalans. “I don’t see that this Barça is that of Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets and Messi. I don’t know what he is saying, but I see Barça and I see that they are more direct and vertical, which they are looking for the speed of the attackers, that they kick the ball in the back and try to get out faster. Ten years have passed since Barça and football changed. This Barça is different. The other one was unbeatable, I experienced it myself with Madrid, but now there is another football and they are adapting to this reality. Then we will see the achievements they get”, he analyzes.

And, finally, a reference to his future, given the length of his relationship with Betis. “I have a self-imposed timeline. When I go to the gym, when I play tennis, when I play golf, what is expected of me to learn more as a technician, what is expected of me by this profession. I live in the present. I’ve been saying for a long time that I’m fifty, with s. When it no longer gives me, the activity will withdraw me of itself. If I can have a team in which I develop my work as I like, I will continue on the bench because it fills my life. I devote a lot of time to football, but not 24 hours a day. I like having time to play sports, to educate myself, to read and to learn languages,” he concludes.