Fernando Roig reveals the secrets of Villarreal, the paradise of football

The voice of Fernando Roigowner of Villarreal for exactly 25 years, sounds with a certain echo, somewhat hoarse, sonorous, as it belongs to one of the most powerful businessmen in Spain and, of course, a living example of how a model football club can and should be built.

Last Wednesday, Roig gave us “enchanted” from his car (“don’t worry, I’m not driving”), the journey from Villarreal’s second sports city, which he had just inaugurated by the hand of the central Paul Torreswhose name the facility bears, to Valencia airport.

“There are no successes that are the result of a single person,” explains Roig, who continues to reject the compliments, the halo of having made Vila-real the smallest town in Europe to have a continental title and the Spanish municipality with the most golf courses. football per inhabitant: one pitch for every 3,000 neighbors.

«Everything is the result of hundreds of people and I am not saying that, everyone knows it, starting with Don Pascual Font de Moraformer owner, who, thanks to the great Joseph Manuel Llanezasold me the club at a meal at the Avenida 41 restaurant, on May 15, 1997, and ending with my son Fernando Roig Negueroleswho is the one who holds the reins of this miracle”, continues explaining the owner of pamesa“passing by Antonio Diazthe player who scored 0-1 in my first game, in Pamplona, ​​when we only shot once on goal and it was a goal».

The connection has been cut. Does not matter. The second, Mr. Roig calls. «It is impossible to talk about all those who have helped us create that feeling of identity yellow, clean, friendly, sporty, affectionate and proud. That is not my thing, of the Roig, of Llaneza, of the staff, it is a thing of an entire town, that is why we are talking about something familiar, very intimate, small but that tries to dream big. Our Champions It is not to be semi-finalists, not even to win the Europe Leaguean unthinkable achievement 25 years ago, our Champions League is to continue in the First Division.”

Roig insists that he is only trying to give back to society, to his people, to his 18,000 subscribers and thousands of followers, what society has given him. «Thinking in yellow, getting excited about yellow, competing, more than winning, in yellow was the end of that purchase, what I would call the ‘esperit de poble’. And today has been wonderful when, at the inauguration of our second sports city, the academy players who were there are already, already feel, the colors of Villarreal since they were born. Before, they were from Real Madrid, Barça, Valencia… now, they are born loving Villarreal.

Villarreal has been among the greats of Europe for a long time and is a semi-finalist in the Champions League after eliminating, look at the data! Juventuswinner of two European Cups, and at Bayern Munich, possessor of six ‘orejonas’. will now be measured with Liverpool, owner of another six European Cups. “Villarreal wants to be great, but it wants to achieve it on solid foundations, which is why everything achieved is, in effect, the result of a large investment, but also the product of the love, effort and work of thousands of people,” he concludes. Roig.

Pau Torres, the first born, raised, instructed, starter and international player for Villarreal from cradle to the Spanish national team, was born four months before Roig bought the club and Llaneza began to star in the most impressive management of recent decades, signing the first contracts in paper napkins bar Juaniin front of Madrigal. Llaneza, another magician who refuses to be recognized as such, has had to withdraw from the scene (he suffers from leukemia), but he does not stop thinking and helping his Villarreal.

“It was not easy to turn a village team into a wonderland,” Llanezas commented on a TV program where he was interviewed. «The only thing I can do is thank the blind trust, which I don’t know if I deserved, that Don Fernando placed in me since we left the 41st avenue restaurant to take care of everything.” And ‘everything’ meant, according to Llaneza, fixing the lawn, which the ‘mister’ of that time refused to do “because we need a horrible playing field, because we play ball up high and whatever God wants happens, I don’t even know! Don’t you dare fix the lawn!”

Everyone looks up and praises Llaneza when he talks about soccer heaven. Llaneza’s greatness is measured, not only by his enormous personality and fidelity to a project, but also by details such as the fact that he never signed any footballer with whom he had not previously had a private meal. “Why? Because you learn a lot from how your guest handles the spoon and fork. That gives me an idea of ​​what kind of person I have in front of me. Understood?” Understood.

All this (and more) helped Llaneza, for example, to sign Manuel Pellegrini (“But, José Manuel, you’re crazy, how are we going to sign a coach who hasn’t trained anyone! & rdquor ;, Roig told him) and the Chilean engineer ended up turning the ‘yellow submarine’ into a football-playing machine . And it is that Llaneza has a privileged eye for soccer, although he has always regretted that, in the meal that he had with Rodolfo Arruabarrena, promised him that in Villa-real it was always sunny. “Every time it rained‘The Basque’ he would go up to my office and ask me to terminate the contract ‘because you told me that it was always sunny here’. He was a spectacular boy ».

If anyone knows the work of Don Fernando and Llaneza, two visionaries as has been demonstrated, that is Javier Matathe journalist and protagonist of the miracle of Radio Vila-real, the only one that has broadcast Villarreal matches from the smallest division to the Champions League. “I have seen people levitate in the Allianz Arena in Munich,” says Mata, who has the story of the ‘yellow submarine’ in his head. «I have seen Don Fernando go, house to house, from the surroundings of Madrigal, buying them, money in hand, to expand the stadium and turn it into today’s La Cerámica. And I have seen how Don Fernando, in Vigo, asked the staff for permission to advance the team’s return charter to be able to watch the youth B game ».

Mata was, 25 years ago, everywhere and assures that the people around Don Fernando, the managers of this miracle, made fun of him (affectionately) when he said that he was going to turn his Villarreal into a great team in Europe . “But where did this Martian come from? His fellow travelers told him,” says Mata. «And there you have Villarreal, with a better quarry, or similar, than La Masia, having copied the Barça modelbut with a difference: he is at the Ciudad Deportiva, always, every day».

Don Fernando only wants to spend money (if necessary) on crack, the rest, Mata says, must come out of the quarry, that’s why he has agreements with many Spanish clubs, so many fields, two sports cities, a residence that is the envy of all of Spain… and that is why he is proud that «Unai Emery, which has added to the yellow tusk tiki-taka, courage, physicality, ‘Sevillanizing’ Villarreal”, says Mata, take, every day, five or six youths to train with the professionals. “Of course, it makes Don Fernando nervous that, when those kids sign their first professional contract (250,000 euros), Real Madrid or Barça offer them four times more.”

“I am perfectly aware of being privileged, of course I am!” Mark Senna, yellow myth and ambassador of the club. “This city breathes football from every corner and this club has gotten where it has because it is a family. I, in the Bayern box, cried hugging Don Fernando and his brother Paco, but it wasn’t two rich people and an ex-soccer player who hugged each other, we were three crazy people celebrating the spirit of an entire people».

the exporter Cesar Sanchez, who assures that, throughout these 25 years, there have been clubs that have invested a thousand times more than Villarreal “without any achievement”, understands that many think that people exaggerate with the greatness of Villarreal. “Okay, I admit it, but if you want to get out of doubt, come and see what this is. Crazy! If they see what this club is, they’ll stop thinking of us as crazy. Here you live the pride of things well done, the club belongs to everyone and there is a unique feeling of belonging and the defense of valueswho are the ones we have chosen to educate our children».

“Here there is no one above the idea,” he says. Santi Serra, from ICM Stellar, the agency that represents Yeremy Pino and Gero Rulli. «Here they put the name of Pau Torres to the second sports city because it is the ‘xiquet de poble’ and because it is the most obvious, crystalline proof that part of the success of this club is the normality with which it lives its great moments . Here Newcastle has come to snatch Emery and the club, the Roigs, nor have they blinked because they managed the situation with admirable tact.

“Since we eliminated Bayern I try to sleep as little as possible,” he says. Tino Traver, coordinator of the Roda de Castellón and a vital piece in the ‘submarine’ quarry: 76 teams and 1,500 children. “I sleep just enough because I am afraid of waking up and that nothing we are experiencing is true.”

To explain what this Villarreal is, Tino uses that half joke in which a pedestrian stops in front of a construction site and asks a worker what he is doing. “I, a wall.” He asks the second. “I, a column.” And even a third. “I, sir, am building a cathedral.” “Well, that is what that modest club that Don Fernando bought 25 years ago has become, a football cathedral, thanks to the bricks that hundreds of people have put in.”