The quiet man with galacticos in his care

WORLD CUP FINAL: VINCENTE DEL BOSQUE PROFILE:THE SON of a Republican railway worker, born soon enough after the Spanish Civil War that the divisions in the country were still very raw, Vicente del Bosque must have seemed an unlikely enough Real Madrid hero as a teenager.

But the quietly spoken and deeply unassuming defensive midfielder spent pretty much his whole career at the Bernabeu, helping the club to five league titles in an 11-year stint as a first teamer, during which time he played more than 330 games and won 18 caps for his country.

As a result, he seems a slightly odd character to be overseeing a Spanish national team constructed around the generation of Barcelona players that has set the game alight over the past few years.

The 59-year-old, however, has shown himself to be far too good a coach to let club loyalties obscure his vision when it comes to choosing which of his vastly talented squad to put out on the pitch for the big international games.

He has worked easily with the boys from Barcelona, seven of whom started against the Germans with, likely as not, the same number set to kick-off in tomorrow World Cup final in Johannesburg.

That he was a good coach was well known back in Spain for some time. It became apparent fairly quickly, having risen through the playing ranks at Real, del Bosque repeated the trick on the coaching side of the club, eventually taking charge of the club’s first team in 1999 when he hit the ground running by winning the Champions League in his first season.

He won either it or the league in each of the three campaigns that followed, making him, in that very short space of time, one of the most successful managers in the club’s illustrious history.

What made the consistency of his success even more remarkable was he was in charge during the chaotic days of the Galacticos, with the likes of Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo arriving in huge money deals imagined then executed not by the coach but by club president Florentino Perez, whose spending resulted in huge debts, and tension among the collection of gigantic egos in the dressingroom.

Of course there was also a huge amount of talent at his disposal, but it took all del Bosque’s charm and patience to keep the whole show on the road.

Despite that, he was sacked in May of 2003, the day after lifting his second league title.

“Del Bosque’s profile is a traditional one,” observed Perez as he delivered the remarkable news. “We’re looking for someone with more emphasis on tactics, strategy and physical preparation. We believe that the squad we are building would be more powerful with a coach with a different character. Del Bosque was showing signs of exhaustion. I want to be sincere about this – our belief that he was not the right coach for the future.”

The first seven years of that future hasn’t thrown up anyone remotely capable of matching his achievements at the famously impatient club, with a laughable number of successors managing two further titles between them but nothing to speak of in Europe where the biggest prize lies.

To say del Bosque felt harshly treated in the circumstances would be something of an understatement. His home overlooked the club’s then training ground but he no longer watched the players practice and it would be six years, after he had become national team manager, before he would set foot in the Bernabeu for a Real game again.

By then, he had had a disappointing spell in Turkey with Besiktas, which ended in the sack after less than a full season, and, remarkably, some time as the technical director at a second division outfit. He was offered other jobs, though, turning down a number, including a last-minute chance to manage Mexico at the 2006 World Cup.

Eventually, when Luis Aragones became difficult to keep in the Spain job, del Bosque, complete with his slightly comical walrus moustache, was waiting in the wings.

He told the players on the first day he would change nothing and, the manner in which the team is run apart, he has been as good as his word, with Aragones’ European Championship winning team kept together insofar as has been possible along with his predecessor’s tactical approach,

Infinitely less brash or controversial than Aragones, he has looked to quietly coax performances out of his players and the approach has been wonderfully successful to date, with 30 wins out of the 32 games Spain have played since he took charge.

The second defeat, the one by Switzerland, with which the Spanish kicked off this World Cup, prompted criticism from Aragones, who questioned his successor’s motivational powers. Del Bosque kept both his head and his counsel and with admirable coolness stuck with the formula that has since yielded five straight wins.

Players speak highly of him and Fernando Hierro, with whom he was supposed to have had a falling out at Real, describes his knowledge of the game as “encyclopaedic”.

Respectful of the press and their opinions, “the quiet man” nevertheless took issue with some of the reporting that followed the defeat by the Swiss, insisting he had not, as had been claimed, been “deeply angry” with his players. He was, he admitted, “deeply upset”, but consistently sought to build up the confidence of his players, an approach that his since brought rich rewards.

He is not afraid of big decisions, though, with the omission from his 23-man squad of the likes of Bojan Krkic, Daniel Guizo, Santi Negredo and Marcos Senna causing controversy at home, and he also replaced the out-of-form Fernando Torres with Pedro for the semi-final against Germany.

After that win, he spoke with considerable humility about what the team had achieved and, of course, what remained to be achieved. Tomorrow he faces the biggest game of his life and, with characteristic modesty of course, one suspects he is set to deliver on the big stage once again.

DEL BOSQUE FACTFILE

Full Name:Vicente del Bosque Gonzalez

Born: 23/12/50 in Salamanca

Playing Career:

Real Madrid Castilla (1969–71)

Castellan (1970-71)*

Cordoba (1971–72) *

Castellonn (1972–1973)*

Real Madrid (1973–84)

* on loan

Coaching Career:

Real Madrid Castilla (1985–90)

Real Madrid (1994)

Real Madrid (1999-2003)

Besiktas (2004-05)

Spain (2008 – now)

Playing Career

Honours(all with Real Madrid):

La Liga: 1974–75, 1975–76, 1977–78, 1978–79, 1979–80.

Copa del Rey: 1973–74, 1974–75, 1979–80, 1981–82.

Coaching Career

Honours:

Spanish La Liga with Real Madrid: 2000-01 and 2002-03.

Spanish Super Cup: 2001.

Champions League: 2000 and 2002

Uefa Super Cup: 2002.

Intercontinental Cup: 2002.