Phil Ball on Bilbao's Julen Guerrero

Discussion in 'Basque Clubs' started by Bilbao2Brooklyn, Jan 25, 2005.

  1. Bilbao2Brooklyn

    Jun 20, 2001
    Brooklyn,U.S.A.
    T[​IMG]he Lazarus filesPhil Ball

    Loads of luverly goals this weekend in La Liga, seven of the thirty-six hitting the net in one particularly amazing match at Athletic Bilbao's San Mamés stadium. Losing to Osasuna, their not-so-distant cousins from Navarre, by 0-3 as late as the 58th minute, the Lions turned the show on its head and won 4-3. Athletic's fans, a noisy and emotional lot at the best of times, went understandably ballistic when the winner was scored in the 89th minute, but there was an extra reason for the decibels. The scorer was none other than Julen 'Lazarus' Guerrero, briefly back from the dead - the forgotten man of Spanish football who once occupied a large percentage of the nation's bedroom poster space - a man so popular in the mid 1990's that there was no escaping his chiselled jowls.

    After scoring on his debut against Cádiz in 1992 he could seemingly do no wrong and soon outstripped sliced bread in the popularity stakes. He opened his own restaurant; Basque children were named after him in their thousands; he narrated a wildlife series and played classical piano on TV (not at the same time); was courted by Real Madrid, Juventus and Manchester United, and even pronounced on political themes.

    It was on a comedy programme on Spain's Tele 5 that the spoof news presenter read out that 'The mother of Julen Guerrero announced publicly today that she is the only woman in Spain who does not wish to sleep with her son'. Just as well - since he was hardly short of offers. With his blondish locks, freckles and blue eyes, combined with his dashing, heroic style of play, his face seemed to occupy the covers of straight magazines, gay, male, female, style, and Homes and Gardens.

    He played 40 times for Spain, scoring thirteen goals, and pledged his future to his beloved Bilbao. In 1995 he signed a contract committing him to the club until 2007 - a contract whose longevity broke all previous records at the club and which was eventually to prove a millstone around his neck.

    Before Saturday's goal, Guerrero had not scored for eleven months, had only played twice, and had to all intents and purposes disappeared from the scene. Luis Fernandez first dropped him back in 2002, causing considerable controversy, but in truth he had not been playing well since the turn of the century. Last season he hardly played at all, giving way to rumours that he would retire, be loaned out, or even more unthinkably, transferred to pastures new.

    Still only 31, there were some who dared accuse him of cowardice, sitting out his lucrative contract instead of trying to revive his career elsewhere, but Julen insisted that there was only one place for him. This was enough for most Athletic fans, and perhaps the weekend's events may revive his flagging career. It's certainly hard to think of a similar case in Spanish football; of a player once so feted declining so rapidly, almost as if the whole of his previous successes were based on an illusion.



    [font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][[/font]
    Other recent cases that come to mind are Zaragoza's Javi Moreno, whom I saw make his debut for Spain against England at Villa Park. Wonderful for little Alavés, he was transferred to Milan, disappeared off the map and then seemed half the footballer he was on his return. Gaizka Mendieta, although he has played decently for Middlesbrough since his return from Italy, was once the best player in Spain by miles. Valencia's resurgence would not have happened without him.

    But if Ivan de La Peña, so often written off as the mother of all enigmas, can come back from the dead as he has done this season for Espanyol, then maybe Julen can also have a swansong. Athletic's supporters have stuck by him through thin and thinner, his apparent ostracism by the club at times straining their loyalty. Guerrero must have been wanting to pay back their faith in him for some time, and to be fair to the bloke, he never raised a voice either against Luis Fernandez or the present manager, his ex-midfield colleague Ernesto Valverde.

    The same cannot be said for Walter 'The Rifle' Pandiani, Deportivo's Uruguayan centre-forward who became the latest in a long line of players to have a go at poor Jabo Irureta, the manager of the Galician club. But Walter 'The Gob' went a little too far this time, basically accusing his boss of incompetence and of 'not caring', for which he was handed a place on the bench this weekend against Espanyol, and for which he will probably be shunted out of the club this week.

    Deportivo won on home soil for the first time in two months, two goals being scored by another semi-forgotten man, Diego Tristán. He was once considered amongst Spain's finest centre-forwards, until he wasted too much energy on also criticising Irureta. Another player who scored in this game, Juan Carlos Valerón, has also been lining himself up to join the ranks of the discarded greats, but may have also given himself that little boost that makes all the difference.



    Of course, whilst on this theme of decline and fall, Raúl should at least warrant mention. He still isn't playing particularly well, but Spain seems to have taken a collectively unconscious decision to ignore this fact and pretend that he's fine. There's a touch of the emperor's new clothes about Raúl these days - 'But daddy! The one with the beaky nose isn't really playing very well. Why is he in the team?' It's as if the country has long since assimilated the fact that he is an untouchable, and that nothing can relegate him to the bench. Maybe it's sort of comforting that he's always there, like an emblematic statue in some resonant city plaza.

    But returning to San Mamés, the Spanish press has a particular love of the 'remontada' or 'comeback', as it means in English. The phrase became fashionable in the 1980's when Real Madrid staged a succession of unlikely Lazarus acts during a series of European adventures, usually in two-legged episodes.

    One of the most amazing that I witnessed in La Liga, before this weekend, was a game in the Copa Del Rey of 1997, when Bobby Robson's Barcelona turned around a 0-3 deficit at home to Atlético Madrid, eventually winning the game 5-4. If my memory serves me correctly, Pantic scored all four for Atlético, and Ronaldo helped himself to a hat-trick for Barça, with one from Figo for good measure. How times and affiliations change! But I remember it as one of the most exciting games I've seen in this country.

    Some great goals this weekend too, in what was effectively the first game of the second half of the season. Valencia's defeat at in-form Villarreal means that the season may soon become a two-horse race, but an interesting one nevertheless. Alavés have taken over at the top of the Second Division, which increases the promise of a return of the entertaining Mr Piterman to the top flight next season.

    Whatever - nice to see a blast from the past this weekend, as those grown-up folks who were teenagers in 1992 dust off their Julen posters, search out the blu-tac and return ol' blue eyes to his rightful place. Can it last? Don't miss next week's instalment.
     
  2. sweet nick willy

    sweet nick willy New Member

    Sep 6, 2001
    Barcelona
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Sid Lowe on Bilbao's Julen Guerrero

    There's also another article along the same lines about Guerrero by Sid Lowe.

    http://football.guardian.co.uk/continental/story/0,8018,1397389,00.html

    Whatever happened to Julen Guerrero?

    He was the blue-eyed boy wonder of Spanish football, and then he went missing. But on Saturday, for one night only, Julen Guerrero rolled back the years, writes Sid Lowe.

    Monday January 24, 2005

    It is one of football's great mysteries, right up there with: why do relegation-threatened managers sign Neil Redfearn? What exactly is going on between Terry Venables and Nicky Barmby? And how did John Barnes get into those shorts? Only this mystery occupies the Spanish and the Basques: whatever happened to Julen Guerrero?

    Well, this weekend, at last, they got their answer, when the one-time Athletic Bilbao boy wonder sent San Mamés wild, just for old times' sake.

    Once upon a time, Julenmania was the biggest craze in Spain since yo-yos and skateboards: with his floppy blond hair, bright eyes and goalscoring touch, girls cried and screamed and shook when he was near; photographers shot him in provocative poses; players tried to kick him (Diego Simeone once left a perfectly rounded, stud-shaped hole in his thigh), kids queued for autographs, and Europe's biggest teams lined up to sign him.

    Julen, though, said no. Not to the fans - that would be rather mean and he was a nice boy that your mum fancied just as much as your sister did - but to the clubs. Real Madrid, Lazio and Atlético were all shooed off because Julen wanted to play for his beloved Athletic - especially if they wanted to pay him lots of money. And they did want to pay him lots of money: after all, having broken into the first team at the age of 18 under Juup Heynckes in 1992, Julen was a superstar who just couldn't stop scoring.

    As the Spanish put it, Julen rose like froth (which, rather sadly, says it all about their beer-pouring technique). He scored 28 league goals in his first two seasons, and 65 in his first six. From midfield. He built a house (well, got someone else to build a house for him) overlooking the training ground. He was the symbol of Athletic Bilbao, the world's most unique club, and when he made the jump to the national team the rest of Spain got even more excited: for a while it seemed the selección couldn't lose with him in the team.

    This boy was the la leche, the milk, the business. Everyone wanted him, so Athletic gave him a contract until 2007 which still makes him the best-paid player at the club and his buy-out clause - designed to ward off the queue of suitors - was raised to a whopping 72m euros.

    And then he disappeared. His goals dried up and, soon after, so did his opportunities. Chupa-Chup-sucking, gallic-shoulder-hunching, limelight-hogging coach Luis Fernández, who didn't much care for other people being the star, thought the unthinkable and dropped him. Subsequent coaches followed suit: having played between 2,000 and 3,000 minutes consistently for nine seasons, Julen, Athletic's captain and idol, played just 1,250 in 2001-02. The next two seasons he couldn't reach 400. And so far this season things had been going no better: Julen had played in just two matches.

    Until Saturday night. "Julen was in the right place at the right time," said Athletic coach Ernesto Valverde. By which he basically meant: on the bench, as usual, with ten minutes to go. Only rather than staying there, Julen sprang into action to provide an incredible comeback to Athletic-Osasuna, a truly sensational game that had everything: seven goals, five of them outrageously good, a red card, pace, passion and some of the most horrific tackles seen since that weirdo on The Word dangled weights from his willy. "Delirium at San Mamés!" screamed Marca - and rightly so.

    It was the kind of match you only get in the north: powerful, direct and fast with two very, very big guys up front - Llorente is 6ft 4in, Morales 6ft 5in - and attacks in wave after wave. The kind of game that left AS's Javier Hernández incessantly banging on about "race": four times in a single column report he extols the virtues of raza but fear not, for Javi is no little Hitler: raza is more an expression of spirit, fight and thrust, of epic physical endeavour, strength and power.

    And indeed it was. It also showed why San Mamés, nicknamed the Cathedral, is different from virtually any other stadium in Spain. At 0-3 down, the Camp Nou and the Bernabéu would be emptying, those fans that remain whistling their team and whipping out their hankies in disgust. Not San Mamés: with an hour gone, Athletic were trailing 0-3, to three magnificent goals - a diving header from Pierre Webó, and two thumping shots, one from the wonderfully psychopathic Pablo García, proud owner of 14 yellow cards in 18 games, and the other from Paco Puñal.

    But rather than give in, San Mamés roared their team on. And they really, really seemed to believe in a comeback, a belief that caught on amongst the players. "Faith makes anything possible," said Julen, sounding frighteningly like the right-wing TV evangelist Benny Hinn.

    And their faith grew all the stronger when Fran Yeste, a magnificently talented rebel who changes his hairstyle as often as this column changes its pants (yes, every two weeks) and is just one of many reasons why Julen is no longer getting much of a game, scored two in five minutes (and then got sent off in the 90th). It was 2-3 with 25 minutes to go, but while Athletic were on top, the goal just wouldn't come - until with ten minutes left, Valverde threw on Roberto Martínez ("Tiko") and Julen.

    It was an inspired change. Five minutes later, Tiko steered a neat finish into the corner; five minutes later still - that's the last minute for those of you not too hot at maths - Julen's big moment arrived. Andoni Iraola's cross curled into the near post and Julen was there to nudge it past the keeper for his 99th league goal.

    San Mamés went wild. Everyone one went wild, in fact. At yesterday's training session Julenmania was back, and so were the smiles. No one could quite believe what they had seen; everyone was happy. Even losing Osasuna coach Javier Aguirre. "Today, at last," he said, "we managed to secure our rightful place as the worst defence in the league."
     

Share This Page