A few weeks after his atypical departure from Olympique Marseille, Marcelino gave interviews to ‘MARCA’ & ‘AS’. In them, he reviewed his brief period in French football, his current situation and his plans for the future.
In the meeting with journalists Alberto Rubio and Pedro Pablo Parrado, the Asturian declared that he was calm, after living through some complicated days: “It was something unexpected, which makes it even harder to live through this type of situation”. The coach was clear when talking about the tension generated by the ultras (“it seems unreal that in 2023 these things can happen”) and the reason behind his departure from the club (“I thought that if Pablo [Longoria] stopped doing his job, we had no reason to be there”).
Marcelino’s words were reported in the print and online editions of ‘MARCA’, as well as on Parrado’s radio programme. There was time to talk about the recent interest from Sevilla FC (“it’s a thorn in my side, but to meet expectations there had to be certain conditions that were not met”), about a possible future as national coach (“for any Spanish coach it would be the greatest possible challenge, but that option has not been given”) or about the Premier League (“it’s the NBA of football; it’s the best league in the world”).
“I admire all the great professionals who have shown in different leagues the ability to adapt and give their teams a very defined identity,” said the Careñes coach in reference to Benítez, Guardiola and Emery; examples of Spanish success in international football.
The difficulty of competing with PSG
“There is a continuous change of coaches and players; the coaches are not there for more than a year. There is clearly room for improvement. It’s impossible to generate a solid and winning project”, said Marcelino about Olympique in the interview conducted by Aritz Gabilondo for ‘AS’. . With the same clarity he referred to PSG’s dominance in Ligue 1: “It’s difficult to beat a team that invests more than 300 million and has Mbappé, probably the best player in the world right now, in France… and in Europe. It’s complicated”.
In the conversation there was a section dedicated to the football of yesterday and today, marked by a clash of styles. From FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team that dominated the world to the current moment, in which physicality makes the difference. In this case, García Toral was not so categorical: “Rodri is not so different from Busquets or Xabi Alonso. And Bellingham is marvellous, but I’m sure there were players with a similar profile to him before”.
While waiting for a new challenge, Marcelino is not wasting any time. Neither professionally nor personally: “I consume football; it’s my passion, although I don’t analyse it as much as when I’m a coach. I try to pick up new knowledge that will allow me to improve. And of course I want to live as much as possible with my family and friends. It’s a mixture of enjoying life and staying connected to football”.
