Football “They want to go to Europe in six months, but they don’t know how”: the former Roja player criticizes the new generations of footballers

Player training is a topic that is often debated within national clubs. The introduction of the Sub 20 rule, which later became Sub 21, encouraged the emergence of new values ​​in local competition. However, the consolidation of promises is usually slow. Or some, when they arrive, fail to perform at the same level as in the lower divisions. There are other cases where they manage to perform well in the First Division, but when they go abroad, they do not perform as well as they did at home.

This is the main difference with the most important members of the Golden Generation. Alexis Sánchez, without going any further, highlighted this in his interview with Mark González. “I was in Barcelona when I was 21 and I wasn’t young. I had already played in a World Cup,” the Wonder Boy stressed.

In a thought exercise, Gonzalo Jará He diagnoses the difference between the footballers who appear today and what he was when he joined the Huachipato first team. “A classmate once told me that I was going to get tired and bored, because today’s generations, I don’t know if they don’t have the commitment… Even though I don’t want to be a role model and I don’t feel like a role model, I had to be careful that we played badly or lost,” he said in a conversation with The third as part of the third part of the documentary series Hang up the golden boots.

According to the former defender, the differences can be explained by the change in mentality caused by the proliferation of social networks. “Today, children skip many stages. I was sure that being in Huachipato I could join a big team, that it would take me to the national team and then I could jump to Europe. Today, I see that players want to go out, but after six months. Young people skip the stages because we live in immediacy. The networks have something to do with it. It’s not the number of photos they upload, that doesn’t matter, but everyone is thinking about what’s going to happen,” he explains.

Of course, the double champion of America’s Cup Take this thought beyond football. Even if he illustrates it with his profession, since that is where he must have perceived it. “When I study, I already think about what I want to work on. It tired me out. I didn’t want to take on responsibilities or be a reference. I asked the little ones where they wanted to play and they all said it was in Europe, then I asked them how they would get there, and they didn’t have an answer. I asked them if they were going to the gym or working out more hours and they weren’t. I was tired of being a dad in the locker room. That’s a position I don’t want to be in,” he said. This led him to make the decision to quit football, even though, in his own words, he felt he could play for another two years.

In this way, Gonzalo Jara brings the situation closer to the reality of La Roja. In his analysis, everything happened at the right time and it will now be difficult for a moment like the double American championship to be repeated. “It will take 100 years to find another golden generation. People must enjoy it. Criticism can be there, with respect,” he states. In the same vein, he assures that he hopes to have the opportunity to give back to the national team what he learned during his years as an All-Team defender. “We have to put it into service. For this we must prepare ourselves. Especially to train young people. As I said, they are more difficult, they want other types of things. But I would love to be able to work in smaller divisions. We need to find players at 15, 16 or 17 years old and work on their psychological aspects. I had Bielsa when I was 22 and I think if I had had him six years earlier I would have gained years in my career. We have to take something from what we compete in order to give something to others and to teach,” he suggests.

Despite the above, he also says he would currently tell emerging athletes to make decisions in their careers driven by money. “Wherever I’ve played, my advice to younger people, even though it may seem bad, is to go there for economic reasons. If the coach wants to have them in the national team, he will call them the same. It depends on how the player maintains it, but football is played and trained the same everywhere. They offered me twice to go to Saudi Arabia and I did not accept, for fear of losing my position at La Roja, but today I would do it. If the coach wants them, he will call them the same way,” he said.