They have known one another since they were seven years old. They went to the same school, joined their first professional club, Sporting Gijon, at a similar time, tasted success as players together at Barcelona and thrived and suffered in tandem with the Spain national team.
When they meet, their chatter is peppered with the dialect of Asturias, the region in northern Spain from where they both hail.
Luis Enrique, coach of Spain’s champions, Barcelona, on Saturday plays host to one of his closest friends within football, his contemporary and fellow coach Abelardo Fernandez, whose Sporting Gijon go to Barca’s Camp Nou with renewed gusto in pursuit of their ambitions for the season.
Both men, in their mid-40s, will be acutely aware that, though their current challenges and aspirations are very distinct, their emotions at this tense stage of the season mirror one another’s.
Fernandez said, not entirely in jest, that he worried about the health of his heart last Wednesday night as he stalked his technical area at Sevilla, and Sporting grabbed a 91st minute goal to win 2-1 and lift themselves out of the relegation zone, at least for 24 hours. They are back in the bottom three now, but have hope that with four matches left and just one defeat in their last five league games, they have a momentum that, maybe, can carry them to a great escape.
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A month ago, Enrique might have been almost happy to see Fernandez come to Camp Nou, where as a central defender of speed and steel he gained the affections of barcelonistas for the best part of a decade, and go away with a point for Sporting.
Enrique used to play for Sporting, in the Gijon of his birth, before moving on to Real Madrid, then Barcelona as a conspicuously driven midfielder-cum-striker. “I am a fan of Sporting,” he admits.
A few weeks ago, he could have envisaged that Saturday’s fixture might be a chance for Barcelona to ease up, rest senior players. But Barca’s defence of their league title has lately been as flaccid as Sporting’s resistance to the threat of relegation has turned feisty. Barca have won only once in their last five Primera Liga outings.
The bad news for Sporting and for ‘Pitu’ Fernandez, as ‘Lucho’ Enrique calls him, is that one win was the midweek 8-0 thrashing of Deportivo La Coruna. Worse, for Pitu, is that Barca’s diminished lead in the Primera Liga table leaves no room for friendship or favours.
Enrique’s team have dropped so many points in April that they go into the fixture knowing that positive results in earlier matches for second-placed Atletico Madrid, equal on points with Barcelona, and for Real Madrid, one point in arrears, could see Barcelona in third spot by the time the Asturiano amigos exchange handshakes at Camp Nou before kick-off.
Fernandez can expect to be cheered by the crowd. When Enrique returned to El Molinon, Sporting’s stadium, for the first time as a coach in February, overseeing a 3-1 Barcelona win, he was greeted warmly. “It was emotional for him,” Fernandez said. “It will be the same for me when I go to Barcelona.”
‘Pitu’ says of ‘Lucho’, “we are like brothers”. And, as coaches, they are close siblings in a wider family of former colleagues who played at Barcelona in the mid-1990s, have been drawn to management and shown a gift for it.
Fernandez played in a Barcelona defence alongside Laurent Blanc, who has just guided Paris Saint-Germain to a third Ligue 1 title on the trot, and with Ronald Koeman, whose management skills are as admired now in England, for his work at Southampton, as they were in Holland, where he led Ajax and PSV Eindhoven to titles, and Iberia, where he coached at Benfica and Valencia.
Enrique, winner of a treble last season, played in a Barcelona midfield in front of Fernandez and Blanc, and alongside Pep Guardiola, now the most feted coach of his generation. Enrique’s perpetual burden is to be compared to Guardiola, who won everything as player and coach at Barca. Gijon-born Fernandez’s challenge is as heavy, if less spotlighted. Sporting have a tiny budget, a young team, were promoted only last summer. If he keeps them in the Primera Division, he will have achieved something almost as wondrous as the trebles Enrique and Guardiola brought to big-budget Barcelona.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK — JUAN CUADRADO
A year ago, Juan Cuadrado was on his way to being voted by Chelsea supporters as the club’s worst recruit of the season. On Monday, he could pick up a Serie A winner’s medal. It has been quite an 18 months for the Colombian winger, who can help move Juventus a step closer to the scudetto, the Italian title, with a win against his former club, Fiorentina on Sunday.
Florence favourite
At Fiorentina, Cuadrado is remembered with respect and fondness. He spent three and a half years with the Tuscan club, making the right flank his domain, exciting fans with his speed, close control and tricks while dribbling, and some eye-catching goal celebrations.
Golden generation
Cuadrado, who turns 28 next month, grew up in tough circumstances, in Necocli, in his native Colombia. His luck was to grow up as a footballer in a fruitful time for the sport in his country. Along with the likes of James Rodriguez and Radamel Falcao, he helped the national team to their first World Cup, in 2014, of this millennium; like Falcao and James, he had moved to Europe to advance his career, signed by Italy’s Udinese from Independiente Medellin when he was 21.
Italian initiation
Serie A had to be patient to see the best of Cuadrado. Udinese sometimes used him as an attacking full-back, not his best position. He spent a spell on loan at struggling Lecce. But Udinese have an a eye for potential and a long-term yield. When Fiorentina finally bought a full stake in the player, having taken him first on loan and then purchased 50 per cent of his rights, they had paid €18 million (Dh74.5m) to Udinese.
Premier League perils
Fiorentina knew they had a bankable asset. Chelsea paid close to €30m for Cuadrado in January 2015. But English audiences would not see him at his best, his outings sporadic for a club then en route to the Premier League title, his performances mixed. In the summer, Chelsea, then managed by Jose Mourinho, let him return to Italy, on loan to Juventus.
Juve rejuvenation
Cuadrado has since been a key member of the Juve team bidding for a fifth successive title. His goal and assist in the 2-1 derby win over Torino in October marked a turning point in a Juventus campaign that had started badly and then soared. He has four goals and six assists for the league season so far. Juve coach Massimiliano Allegri wants him to stay. But Chelsea, still his parent club, will come under the coaching of Antonio Conte, formerly of Juventus, in June. Conte, reports say, is a fan of the Colombian.
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