With Galder Reguera (Bilbao, 1975) you discover that there was a Brazilian Flamengo player who used to narrate his own dribbles while performing them. Or that Pacho Maturana traveled with his Colombian team through the coffee-growing region of his country so that they would understand that his mission was to provide happiness to these workers. With Reguera, one comes to know life best through big football as much as it is underrated.
Philosopher by training and Director of Strategy and Operations at the Sports Club Foundation, Reguera Publica Why football? (Geoplaneta), an anthology of his columns that acts as an embrace for the fan demanding what else happens off the field. And as an inspiration to those who feel alienated from the ball. The reader will learn concepts such as rough football, mental injury, that the field is not the arc of the world or that this game is played seriously because it is serious in the way children play.
We don’t cry by song but with Song, write. This also happens when we get excited about football. Can you imagine your life without him?
No, it made me feel so much and helped me learn about myself and the world. For better and for worse, like my cowardice on the field when I played when I was young. We football fans are accused of having artificial feelings. You can’t be upset because your team lost a game at the last minute. I have a theory that part of these feelings come from outside football. This is channeling emotions that exist off the field.
He has two presences in his literature. What role do they play in keeping you passionate about football?
One of the phenomena that happens when you have children is that you see the world again through the eyes of a child. The fascination, the reasons, all those things you put aside as an adult. Family and relationships between people are very noticeable in my literary life. I am a posthumous son, and I had a stepfather, which is why I always understood that bonds are not only from blood, but also from what you live, what you share, and the moments that need to be built. Going to the playground with my kids is the best. I love sharing soccer time with them. My kids have made me a better writer. They always say that with kids there is no time to write, and you become a worse writer, but I think it’s the other way around for me.
San Mames is not the stone, it is the people
The stadium of his club, Athletic, is also the protagonist of his work. Is the new San Mames already building its own legend for new generations?
San Mames is not the stone, it is the people. From old to new we moved a hundred meters. That’s why I wrote that the stone changes but the spirit remains. San Mames is our home, you can change apartments, but you can say to your friends “I’m coming home.” Home is where you live, mentally too. By not moving it, the masses’ relationship with the space remains the same. When the previous house was demolished it was an emotional day, but as we started in the new house we realized it was the same, even with greater comfort and security.
My kids have no memories of old San Mames. The older one went to several games, but he doesn’t remember and the younger one couldn’t step on them. When we see pictures from before together, my kids say “Aita, what a smaller stadium, did Athletic play there?” I’m kind of articulate: the old San Mames was my family’s field, the new one is my children’s field.
The World Cup in Qatar made me doubt myself, but I believe we can use football to teach. Before matches, I told my children how FIFA and Qatar banned people from talking about gay rights.
Let’s admit that football today has its own saga. The World Cup final in Qatar was a great match.
If someone says the best World Cup was in 82, when he was 15, it is because he lived with the most passion. I was 15 years old in 1990, and that World Cup was bad, but I remember the match between Argentina and Cameroon, the Colombian Rincon’s goal against Germany, and the Egyptian twins, or the semi-final match in Naples between Italy and Argentina. When your eyes discover the world, everything fascinates you.
The World Cup in Qatar made me doubt whether I should watch it, but I think we can use football to educate. Before matches, I told my children how FIFA and Qatar banned people from talking about gay rights. I have no doubt they will remember that World Cup fondly. I saw it and I don’t remember most of the matches, but for my kids Livakovic is what Taffarel is to us.
Can a fan stop loving football?
You can walk away. I’ve distanced myself at times. She looked at him with contempt and suspicion. Now I still have doubts about its educational role from my own experience. Football also miseducates in the hyper-capitalist sense of maximum demand, discrimination by levels at an early age, and technocratic discourses with little humanity in dealing with it.
But there is something about the ball. You start throwing it away and are hypnotized by calculating the odds of it going into the trash. There was a video that went viral of a teacher shooting a basket with her back turned, and if she entered the basket, she would give her students chocolate. There is a moment as the ball approaches the plate, where there is a silence of absolute expectation: Will the miracle happen? If you love the ball, it will be difficult for you to get rid of it. You can exclude yourself from elite football, but it’s hard to spend a day in the park reading, and if there are some kids playing, don’t look to see if that ball is going in.
Perhaps one of his future plans, as we read in another column, is to write an anti-coaching guide entitled Yes, you can’t. It seems that in football discourse there is no compromise between the cup slogan and the hyperrealism of assuming that one suffers more than one celebrates.
“Anything is possible”, “It’s a matter of will”, or that if Betis can beat Real Madrid, it means we can all achieve our goals: I hate coaches because I think they are parasites on philosophy. My big problem with this is that people who need help often put themselves in the coach’s hands and this postpones professional psychological help. It is better to know what you will not be able to do than to obsess over the fact that what you have not achieved is your sole responsibility.
Some of his heroes are Rachid Makhloufi, José Ángel Iribar, Socrates, Kenny Dalglish, Predrag Pašić, Eric Cantona and Thomas Hitzlsperger. What do they have in common?
They were not limited to the stadium. I love players for what they do on the field and I don’t care much about what they do off the field unless they cross certain red lines. I don’t require a footballer to hold a political position, but when he does, for me he is closer to a hero. The moment I was most proud of my current team captain, Inaki Williams, was when he said in a press conference that I hoped his goals would help silence mouths, referring to the far right.
Makhloufi abandoned the sporting glory of the 58th World Cup to join the Algerian National Liberation Front and provide aid to his country. His replacement, Just Fontaine, was and remains the World Cup’s top scorer, but I once asked Makhloufi if he didn’t regret it and he replied: “I go to Algiers and the children kiss my hand.” He wouldn’t change what he did for anything.
Heroes are close sometimes. He speaks fondly of Carlos Gorbegui, Oscar de Marcos, Dani Vivian and Iñigo Pérez.
You name exceptional people. I was lucky enough to share my business side with them and my admiration grew. With Inigo Pérez, I lived one of the happiest moments of my life. I was at a film festival (Thinking Football, organized by Athletic) and he wanted to come. I thanked him and he told me that he had seen me a few times at the club and that he was embarrassed to come up and say hi, but he wanted to thank me. “She taught me when I was 15 and it had a huge impact on me, it changed my perspective on how I see things,” he said. It was just some training classes I gave for three weeks at the school I also taught at. He is an exceptional person and they proved that in Vallecas. The kind of people who make football better.
Ticket price is high. Young people can’t go to football because it’s priceless, not because 90 minutes is long.
What bothers you about current football, that “modern football” that we should call post-modern or post-football?
Fan movement. Ticket price is high. Young people can’t go to football because it’s priceless, not because 90 minutes is too long for them. The stadium experience is great, time flies even in a bad match. I’m disturbed by the forces that are trying to take the people who are the rightful owners of this game off the field: the people. Many clubs make the mistake of turning their backs on their natural fans. Now there is a movement that restores closeness, and it can be seen in Burgos, in Santander, in Hercules or in Barcelona with Sant Andreu or Europe, where the fan returns to his natural place. To the local club that gives you what no big club can give. This is the football we must demand.
I also don’t like putting the camera everywhere. And I can’t stand “give me the shirt” signs. As a kid I went to San Mames to give drawings to the players, and I didn’t want the shirt, and they weren’t asked for it. I do not like idolatry, in general, with a football player there should be a more individual relationship. I think this is maintained in Bilbao. Ignacio Martinez de Besson calls it the city of former players, because every time he comes he passes someone on the street.
Does love of football require that?
Yes. Like the person you love. You love football and you ask it to behave.
The athlete Refugees who were recently honored from Palestine and Honey Tlija, former captain of this team, in a highly acclaimed event in San Mames.
The athlete has very deep roots in the area and does not turn his back on the community. There is a blurred line between human rights and politics. It is said that clubs do not have to play politics and this is understandable in terms of partisanship, but everything is politics. Dee Dee. Highness. It is a political agreement approved by the United Nations.
There was a very strong social demand to take a step forward and the club agreed to this. In addition, we have a special relationship with Honey because we named her our 125th Anniversary Ambassador, and she is sponsoring a project we launched in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. It was a very exciting day. In those days when you were proud of your club. 50,000 people applauding in a stadium for someone means that person is not alone.
The book is dedicated to his colleagues in La Cervantina, the group of Spanish writers. She is trained by what she describes as “the best coach in the world.”
This group generates a very strong bond. It helped me a lot. When I was mentally exhausted and depressed, Pedro (coach Zuazua) called me and said: “Galder, I know where you are now, in a hole.” And I’ll come down and get you out because I’ve been there and I know how it goes. Come with me, man. When I hung up I cried like hell. You’ve noticed what a team is: people who don’t leave you.
If you were a player and had two years of playing football outside of Athletic, what destination would you have chosen?
I wish I was a One club man. If not, I have no idea. I think I would have looked for a place where there was passion. I really like English football. Not necessarily the Prime Minister, from there on out. Or a club with strong roots in its environment. What saddens me is that a millionaire chooses what he does not need: money. They do not realize that what cannot be recovered is time.
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