The greatest football manager you’ve probably never heard of

16:08Helenio Herrera:And he started juggling the ball and kicking it 12, 13 times up into the air, like 20, 30 feet into the air. And it didn't move within like a three-meter radius. And Lineker went back to Barca a day later and they tried it, his teammates' training. And the best anybody got was three times and they were running across the pitch to get the third kick. Like he just was amazing, his touch.

16:39Mario Rosenstock:I'm sure you've seen the little clip online. It was probably put up by a fan of Maradona warming up for Napoli. And it's life is life. La la la la la. And so in the stadium, they're playing life is life. La la la la la. La la la la la life. Right. And on the camera, basically, it's before the match. And the camera is focused on Diego Armando Maradona warming up his his his his socks are around his ankles. and he's doing his stretches and he's playing with the ball. And the stuff he is doing with the ball without knowing anybody's looking at him is breathtaking. Just in his warm-up.

17:20Helenio Herrera:Yeah, yeah.

17:21Mario Rosenstock:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

17:22Helenio Herrera:I know, it's off the charts. And also his personality. Like in comparison to Messi, I've obviously lived in Barcelona for 15 or 16 years. I've covered Messi a lot. I've gone to Rosario to do stories on him. and he's a cold fish. In the modern parlance, I would say he's on a spectrum. He's just so tunnel vision and that's what makes him great because year in, year out, he just delivered. But he is a cold character and he wasn't a good teammate for the junior players on his team. He wasn't an arm around the shoulder guy. He wasn't a great motivator for those guys at Barca. But Maradona, if you talk to his ex-teammates, They just adored him.

18:08Helenio Herrera:He was always taking one for the team. Like he'd do things to lift them up as well. They just would do anything for him. And also, if you think about where Maradona came from, it's very unusual with the South American players, the Brazilians and the Argentinians. They come from poverty, they're working class, but they're not from the shanty towns because those kids just won't get the nutrition or they just come from dreadful circumstances. They don't rise to the top. But Maradona and Carlos Tevez were two just exceptions, that they came from abject poverty. And to think, Maradona, you could say what you like about his personality.

18:55Helenio Herrera:My wife is Venezuelan. She despised him because he ponied up to Chavez and Castro and that. but he obviously was a Jack the Lad but he's a very intelligent, charming guy and to come from where he started it's just incredible.

19:15Mario Rosenstock:He tells a fascinating story there's a fascinating story and I think my listeners would be fascinated by this story as well because it goes beyond football and everybody's heard of the Hand of God the goal that Maradona scored against England in 1986 the first goal the first, the second goal being the goal of God but the first goal being the Hand of God and of course the way he cheated. And Lineker did the documentary where he follows Maradona down and he goes in search of Diego Maradona to ask him, among other things, why did you do it? And it's fascinating because he starts talking to Maradona.

19:49Mario Rosenstock:Maradona is lovely and he's just, he loves Lineker and he's so friendly and you're right, he's a really intelligent, thoughtful person and totally uneducated but very intelligent. And Lineker, with his Anglo-Saxon sense of English justice.

20:05Helenio Herrera:Yeah, yeah. How does that justice mean? Well, yeah, fair enough.

20:10Mario Rosenstock:But you know that kind of Anglo-Saxon thing, you know, with indignation and the way they play by the rules and they set down the rules. He says, so why did you do it? And they translate it. And Maradona went, why did I do it? Because I could. And he said, yeah, but I know, but did you realise it was wrong? Maradona is confused he looks at Lineker and he goes I don't think you understand the meaning of right and wrong and Lineker goes what do you mean and Maradona says what I did was seen as an act of nobility in Argentina and Lineker of course aghast what do you mean and he went in Argentina for the pobrecito the impoverished to to steal from cleverly from it's regarded as an act of heroism.

21:02Mario Rosenstock:And Lineker didn't understand that. He didn't understand how the small man can rob from the big man, but if the small man gets away with it, it's regarded as noble. And this is a cultural thing in South America. It's culturally different. It's hemispherically different, right? And it reminded me of Bertie Ahern. The idea like, well, I got away with it, lads. You know what I mean? And that's what it's all about, getting away with it. And of course, just briefly, addendum to that Luis Suarez was another interesting because when Luis Suarez came to the northern hemisphere he got into trouble a lot for things like biting people's ears but also use of the N word in English exactly so but Suarez was a little bit confused because in Uruguay use of the N word is regarded as a term of affection as far as I understand that it is that there is a different interface with racism culturally in South America.

22:05Helenio Herrera:Correct, correct. Yeah, I am fascinated with that incident and racism. I've reported a lot on racism in football because it comes up a lot in Spain, as you know, with Vinicius just last week. I remember asking a friend of mine, a friend of my wife's, who's Venezuelan about that incident and she's black and yeah absolutely in South America it's a term of endearment El Negro the black guy or El Gordo a friend of Michelle's his wife is called La Gorda the fat one yeah it's a woman and she's called La Gorda which I was always hesitant in saying calling her

22:53Mario Rosenstock:I think the National Lottery in Spain used to be christened El Gordo as well

22:57Helenio Herrera:that's right yeah yeah correct correct but the distinction that friend of mine made to me in the case of the I explained what happened with Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez and she said this is a black woman black Venezuelan woman she said the thing there is that he is white effectively Luis Suarez in Latino culture that is not cool for him to do that if it's a black person because there was an element of threat to it and aggression. So that would be the distinction of what she made. So I found that informative.

23:37Mario Rosenstock:Very interesting.

23:38Helenio Herrera:In that particular instance. Very interesting.

23:39Mario Rosenstock:Okay, well, Richard, I'm loving this conversation, but we're going to spend the next 20 minutes talking about your book, which looks absolutely fascinating and again should be really interesting for people who are not just interested in football, not just as interested in sport, but interested in socio-cultural matters and the way football and certain football people are embedded in our culture and all of that sort of stuff. This book takes in the story of Helenio Herrera. So give us a potted biography of who he was before we go deeper.

24:12Helenio Herrera:Yeah, well, what an enigmatic character. So one of the things about him is that he's so mysterious. Like when he was around in the mid 20th century in his heyday, as you can imagine, it was a time when there wasn't a digital footprint and post-war people reinvented themselves. So nobody knew, you know, most people didn't know where he was from. He was born in Buenos Aires in 1910. His widow, his last wife, she only discovered, she was with him for almost 30 years, she only discovered after he died that he was actually born in 1910. Since he had moved post-war from France to Spain in the late 40s, he had pretended that he was born in 1916.

25:03Helenio Herrera:So she had to get his headstone adjusted. She did it with a marker. He's buried on a cemetery in Venice. and an island cemetery there. So he, born in Buenos Aires in 1910, moves to Casablanca then around 1913, 1914, and grew up in Morocco during the interwar years, and then moves to France in the late 20s to become a professional footballer. He was like a semi-professional footballer, professional football in France. There wasn't much money and much like the League of Ireland today, he double-jobbed. You know, he did all kinds of jobs on the side. Was a journeyman footballer and then got into coaching at the end of the Second World War.

25:56Helenio Herrera:Did well for a couple of years in France. Was picked up then and moved to Spain and landed a big job at Atletico Madrid in the late 40s and immediately won back-to-back titles with them. went on then and managed Barca at the end of the 90s. And he instigated the kind of cult of manager, cult of personality around the manager at Barca, which obviously went on in later decades with Cruyff, Cruyff's dream team and Pep Guardiola. And so that, like a club like Real Madrid doesn't have that cult of personality around the coach.

26:36Mario Rosenstock:So then maybe to summarize what we're talking about here, we're talking about one of, because see, I told you I didn't know who he was, right? And so when you talk about great football figures of the 20th century, right? So obviously I would say things like, you know, Cruyff Beckenbauer, you know, Alf Ramsey, Jockstein, Bobby Charlton, Shankly, Busby. and then it brought maybe, you know, Mario Zagallo in Brazil and Garincha and Pele and Rivelino and Puskas in Hungary, you know, and some of these guys from the Austrian team and Italian teams of the 30s and all of those kind of guys. But I didn't know about Heleno Herrera, but really it turns out that this guy became the first superstar manager of all time.

27:28Helenio Herrera:Yeah, exactly. like when he was operating so he moved from Barca in the late 50s to Inter and then that was his golden period La Grande Inter the great Inter team at the 60s they were the team to beat in the 60s he was a superstar coach some of those coaches you mentioned like Jock Steen or say Matt Busby or Shanks they were huge figures contemporaries of his in Britain at the time but those guys were subservient to their boards of directors and the chairman at the clubs, both in how they behaved and in financial terms. Those guys didn't make much money. They weren't well paid as coaches. This guy, HH, he was a huge figure.

28:17Helenio Herrera:He was paid more than the franchise player at Barca, Kubala, who's an icon here. He wanted two statues outside the camp now of Kubala and of Cruyff. and when he goes to Grand Inter then in the 60s the president there was Angelo Maratti and Italy at the time in the 60s was the land of the lira they were attracting all the best players from Britain John Charles Dennis Law John Charles was the first great guy to go out there chasing the money but HH the money he was making he made more than the coach and sporting director at Milan combined And that's excluding the huge bonuses he got. Just a small detail to illustrate how powerful he was.

29:04Helenio Herrera:So that president at Inter was Angelo Marathi, an oil tycoon, a guy, one of the richest men in the world. His wealth was on a par with Aristotle Onassis at the time. and he had to pay Herrera's wife at the time a salary on the sly in order to curry favour with HH. He would say, will you ask HH to do this, play this friendly match? He was afraid to go to him head on and this was one of the richest men in the world. Busby or Shanks cowered in front of their boards of directors. so he was extraordinary in elevating the status of coaches he was the first guy to when he when he became really famous in the 50s he said i'm the guy that it's going to get results here so the buck stops with me i should be paid accordingly and he was absolutely fearless he was he was an unbelievable guy like you know i i would be fascinated with alex ferguson and they talk about Ferguson's hair dryer treatment, but HH grew up on the streets.

30:14Helenio Herrera:He used to headbutt people if he didn't agree with them. He was a tough, tough man. And he also had amazing charm and powers of persuasion. So he was extraordinary in that sense in becoming so famous. He was even more famous than the most famous player of that era, which was Alfredo Di Stefano. So I know he's unknown to most football fans in Ireland and the British Isles. But in Spain, where I live, if you open up a newspaper every second day, he's mentioned he's a titanic figure and more so again.

30:49Mario Rosenstock:Was he, in a sense, the first special one?

30:53Helenio Herrera:Yeah, yeah. There's huge similarities with the way Jose Mourinho operates still. He would have taken a lot from the HH playbook. he was hh was a really bombastic character he was outrageous in press conferences goading people all the time he was he was really like hilarious for me doing the book one of the the kind of private stipulations i had with myself and with my own contract was that i knew i would have good company over the years it would take to research the book because he was so funny um like even back in the early 50s he was managing Malaga at the time and he started lambasting one of the rival clubs I think it was Depor saying that they were fixed, they had fixed a match and this was like incredible behaviour in a dictatorship to be screaming about fixes being in and like everybody kept their counsel it was a police state so people were shocked that he was doing this, but he didn't give a fig.

32:05Mario Rosenstock:Did he have, did he mastermind tactics and motivational expertise? Was he a master of that area as well?

32:16Helenio Herrera:Absolutely, yeah. I mean, most people would know him in football as the godfather of Catanaccio.

32:22Mario Rosenstock:So let me try, I'm the amateur here, so let me try it. My listeners, what I know is Catanaccio is the idea of, Catanaccio is the Italian idea of very, very defensively minded and you suck the opposition, you suck the opposition into you, that you give them the ball, you let them have possession and you draw them onto you and you draw them onto you so much until eventually you attack and you attack quickly and counteractively, counterattackingly in one very, very quick movement to catch them unaware. And it's really, really embodied by, if you like, Italy's 1982 World Cup winning team, Bruno Conti and Tardelli and Paolo Rossi, you know, just coming from kind of nothing and then they just strike and up the pitch they go and then they get you.

33:10Helenio Herrera:Exactly. I'm really glad you pointed out the element of the transition because people think of Catenaccio as this very reactive system where you just flood the defence. The key element is you pull a midfielder out of midfield and you put him behind the defence as a sweeper. Beckenborough would be the greatest exponent of it. And he can launch attacks from deep and he sweeps up the defence. but it was all about transitions, speed. Speed was a huge thing with HH and Jock Steen for example went to Milan in 63. He was paid by a newspaper in Scotland to go over for a week and be mentored by HH and he took away many things from that week there.

34:03Helenio Herrera:HH was looking at him out of the corner of his eye and he remarked about that big ant that was there in the sideline. But one of the things he took away about HH's breathing techniques, the control he had over the players' diets, particularly the control, the most important thing was the control he had over their social lives. But the transitions, Jock Steen said was a revelation. Suddenly eight players would just sweep forward and they were like clockwork. It was prefiguring total football. He was the first guy to pull wingers back into their own half and then allow the wingbacks or the fullbacks to flood forward, swapping positions.

34:49Helenio Herrera:And he used to typically at a centre forward, he won seven league titles in Spain and Italy and he never had an outright golden ball winner, a top scorer. He never had great centre-forwards. He liked his centre-forwards to lock the central defenders in position or pull them out of position so the centre-forward could create space. and then he had the key element was he had a playmaker in the middle and that was Luisito Suarez who he brought from Barca to that Inter team and he just peppered arrows around the around the pitch he was the playmaker that that pulled the strings so it was all about creating space and so yeah he was he was renowned as being the great innovator It's so funny that you say that now

35:39Mario Rosenstock:because just while you were talking there I was thinking I was thinking back to Mourinho there for a minute because we talked about, I just mentioned in passing that Mourinho was, you know, maybe Herrera was the first special one. And then it dawned on me while you were talking there that Mourinho, of course, started the main body of his professional life in Barcelona as the translator. Yeah. Yeah, Mourinho, of course, is brilliant with languages. He's multilingual, highly intelligent. Exactly, highly intelligent, able to conduct press conferences in five or six different languages.

36:16Helenio Herrera:With charm. With charm and nuance.

36:19Mario Rosenstock:And knowing maybe something of the interior of what he's talking about linguistically. And he was the translator for Bobby Robson over in Barcelona. But also, what strikes me is that Mourinho then later went on to manage the European Cup winning Inter team.

36:36Helenio Herrera:The president of that Inter team was the son of Angelo Moratti.

36:40Mario Rosenstock:Well, now you're talking because now look at the game that he played. That Inter team wasn't fancied, but Mourinho played this highly disciplined, kind of Catanaccio style. It was a brick wall, but then he broke at lightning pace and they secured the European Cup after that. And actually, that was one of the most amazing things that that was, because if you may have seen another YouTube clip, which it's either called or I call it the Tears of Materazzi.

37:13Helenio Herrera:Oh, yeah, outside in the car park. And I urge any of the listeners to watch this.

37:19Mario Rosenstock:And this is what Mourinho and maybe your man Herrera had with the players. This is amazing. If you see the video, put in Tears of Materazzi, Jose Mourinho and Materazzi. and basically I think it's the end after their it's the end of the European Cup I think Mourinho will be leaving the club and he's just won the European Cup he's going to go to Madrid and he's in the car park and this is just this is just mobile phone footage and you can see the players getting on the bus but Mourinho is leaving in a car but Mourinho sees the players getting on the bus you see the car then putting on the brakes he's obviously told the driver to stop he gets out it's like a movie he gets out of the car and he's tearful he's running towards a man the man is Matarazzi the player on Inter Milan almost slow motion they greet each other the door frame I know he's huge and they greet each other and they start hugging and hugging and the hug lasts and they're both absolutely convulsed convulsed with tears and then Marina just holds his head as if to say you know I'll see you again and Morata is don't leave me don't leave me and Marina goes I've got to go I've got to go I am the special one goodbye now I go to Real Madrid I am doing my special business somewhere else and off he goes and it's like a movie but it was completely not staged it was genuine this hold he had of his business was Herrera a bit like this

38:44Helenio Herrera:exactly exactly and if when HH was interviewed or not interviewed he was in conversation with the president of Bars in the 60s and he asked him what's the secret to your success and he said it's one very simple thing get the players in your pocket and everything else is fine after that you know he's given a good squad he will do brilliant things with them and that's what Jose Mourinho did for the first two thirds of his career they're both of them are incredible managers and that's what the players almost universally loved HH I was surprised or universally loved Mourinho and similarly with HH I was surprised by how gushing they were about HH, the players I interviewed.

39:31Helenio Herrera:On the whole, one or two were upset with him, but they had been kind of discarded. So even though he was a tough guy, he'd brought them a lot of success. And he just had this amazing ability to cajole them. Like he would drop players. He wouldn't talk to them. But the minute he needed them, it'd be arm around the shoulder, whispering into their ear, you're the greatest. Fabio Capello said, like he would punch you in the stomach saying you're strong and Cabello had him at the start of his career and he would done once good Eddie with Milan and Juventus afterwards he said he never was as good a player as he had been with HH at Roma because of that confidence he gave him he was just in extraordinary mode of it

40:16Mario Rosenstock:So one of the things that comes out of that is and it's a modern expression especially in terms of sport is emotional intelligence EQ people at the moment right now are talking about it in terms of rugby and Andy Farrell and how Andy Farrell the Irish coach seems to demonstrate a high level of EQ emotional intelligence understanding his players having a special relationship with his players understanding being what it's like for them and they then knowing what he knows about them like for example on Thursday he brings in the parents before the match and he brings in the parents to the dressing room and there's a kind of a communal family thing going on and it's demonstrating a lot of nous.

40:56Mario Rosenstock:Mourinho, it's clear, like, whatever you say about Mourinho is that he's, he must be at the absolute outer apex of intelligence in terms of managers. You know, you know, I mean, and his emotional intelligence is very strong as well, understanding what kind of a person that player that he has is and what pushes their buttons.

41:18Helenio Herrera:Yeah, I think it's a kind of authority that the great managers have. Some of them like cracked the whip and HH operated at a time in the 50s and 60s, just coming out of the Second World War. You could be more aggressive, like both physically and verbally. Like one of his rivals, Roberto Herrera, funnily enough, he was nicknamed HH2. He was the coach at Juventus in the 60s. he one of his players a midfielder was involved in a traffic accident and HH2 was goading him during training he was there you're useless you're only good for killing old people like you could say those things back in the 60s you wouldn't obviously say them now but HH you know tough man but he just had that ability to bring people with him and I don't think it's like a club like Manchester United is quite hysterical at the moment but you look back now and you see the authority that Alex Ferguson had at the club that players just immediately stood taller when he was in the dressing room he could carry them forward with them and he set standards of excellence

42:32Mario Rosenstock:at the club himself he set them himself he was first into the office every morning I think they knew that he was different level you know yeah

42:41Helenio Herrera:and you can see it in any code like you talk about Andy Farrell it strikes me as well looking on from a distance at him or in GAA down in Kilkenny like Brian Cody just immediately like people didn't there are some people

42:57Mario Rosenstock:you just don't want to let down aren't there there are just some people that you'll just break your bollocks just to try and make them happy yeah

43:05Helenio Herrera:it's amazing in any walk of life we have friends or colleagues who have that impact on us and those kind of people have that special aura. You're right, it's in all walks of life.

43:17Mario Rosenstock:And not all of them are in, not all of them are in areas of supreme authority. They just are, they have that thing though. You'd never let them down. You don't want to let them down.

43:27Helenio Herrera:Yeah. They'll be the first you'll immediately respond to their text messages or that, you know, it's just something about them.

43:35Mario Rosenstock:They command respect or something. Maybe they have a dignity or they have standards or something. You know, like for example, I remember Brian, in the rugby situation, Brian O'Driscoll had standards. but that doesn't mean he's a leader though it's just that but I don't think anybody would want to let him down though because but it's just that he didn't personally graduate to leadership himself in that area which is a different man of action which nobody would want to leave down either but it's amazing that Ferguson then would you know you're probably aware of that famous moment where Ferguson they're playing Spurs and they've come off a midweek Champions League game they're tired they're playing Tottenham Hotspur and the players remarked that Fergie hasn't come into the dressing room yet and they're kind of going what's going on like he usually gives us a pep talk right five minutes to three Fergie opens the door and he just goes lads it's Spurs yeah he closes the door and in that enough said in that moment they know the message is clear lads it's Spurs you're meant to mow these guys over and you fucking will and there's nothing else to it.

44:45Mario Rosenstock:And then they all just went down and they just mowed them down because it's just Spurs. We're Manchester United. So in that moment he went, in that moment what he was saying was, you are Manchester United and you are everything that we've worked for. You know it already, just I'm reminding you, they're Spurs. Yeah. Yeah, it's just incredible.

45:05Helenio Herrera:I was, amazing, amazing. Like I was taken and doing the research for this book with Shanks I'm a Liverpool fan and I love Shankly but he didn't he never gave out fines to his players because he said he believed that you've lost them if you have to resort to fines you know he just had them by the power of his tongue

45:27Mario Rosenstock:but one of the things that came out of this is something the elephant in the room among which there are many elephants in the room I could talk to you about another day Richard one elephant in the room which I don't want to talk about now but maybe I'll talk to you about it in other ways I actually don't believe in this whole bubble of football at all. And I'll tell you briefly what I mean. Nowadays, I'm a Liverpool, massive Liverpool fan and have been since those five, Steve Highway and all that sort of, back to Steve Highway and Ray Clements and all that. And then through the 80s and 90s and everything, and I remember watching football in the 90s and Cantona and all that and the matches and it was hell for leather and ball was flying around and tackles were heavy and kind of matches were well contested and gritty.

46:08Mario Rosenstock:Yeah. And nowadays matches are boring. It's tippy, tippy, tappy and matches are boring. Football is boring. And football is also outmoded in many respects because football matches last 90 minutes, 95 minutes, 100 minutes in a world where we only want things to last five minutes anymore. That's why darts has become very popular. High scoring, you know, we can see the scores, throw it in. Basketball will always stay there. Lots of scores, 89, 87. Football, it's nil all after 100 minutes. And the modern person on the modern mobile phone with the dopamine needed all the time. It's not doing it anymore.

46:43Mario Rosenstock:And I think that there's a problem with the, I think there's a bubble going on. Now this is, I have no, I have no, I have no evidence to back this up. But you look at the billions and the billions and the billions and the hundreds of billions and millions spent on the things and I'm going, I don't see it. If you watch Liverpool versus Manchester United on Sky on Sunday in the league, there probably isn't any more than three million people watching that match on TV. Now, there used to be 20 million people watching it on Match of the Day at night in the 70s. Now, I just don't know where the money is coming from and I think that there's a bubble.

47:18Mario Rosenstock:But maybe, and if you want to say something briefly about that, you can, because I want to ask you about something else. I know where the money is going.

47:25Helenio Herrera:It goes straight into the pockets of the players and the agents, yeah. Yeah, there's a couple of things I would say. Number one, football has never been more popular, like as in attendances at games and that obviously the Premier League is the greatest show on earth. Now, it's like everybody follows us. It's huge in North America. It's really popular. There's, they're just, the clubs, the big clubs are on a par with, or just below the big franchises in the United States, in North America. So they're not really overpriced. They have ballooned in value over the last 10 or 15 years. I know Atletico Madrid, for example, since Diego Simeone came in 2011, late 2011, in that 15-year window, they've jumped 10 times their value.

48:20Helenio Herrera:They're two and a half billion. Now they were only worth a quarter of 250 million when he came in. So I think the TV income is flatlining. it's probably peaking it's gone yeah it's saturated it's not there was huge jumps every three or four years but now it's it's tapering off it's football is TV money

48:49Mario Rosenstock:the big money is that where they get

48:51Helenio Herrera:no no that's yeah it's one of three blocks but where they're all focusing and their future revenue growth is in the stadiums that's why you've got Spurs Barca is just completing a huge stadium overhaul. So the match day revenue, there is still room to make a sizable jump there. So that's what people are chasing. That's why United are desperate.

49:15Mario Rosenstock:But do you think that football is outpricing people?

49:18Helenio Herrera:Oh yeah, it's terrible. Sure. The atmosphere, like I live in Barcelona, the atmosphere in the Camp Nou is awful. It never was great, but now it's terrible because it's full of tourists. They have this dynamic pricing. The tickets are astronomical. The first game back in the revamped Cam Nou at 45 ,000 capacity, it will be 100 ,000 when it's finished. The prices were 200 to 600 euro to get a ticket for the game. So it's, yeah, it's kind of disappointing. you know and the big beef I would have with football is just the competitiveness is gone there's 8 or 12 super clubs you see the same clubs in the last 4 the Champions League or last 8 like nobody I'm not I go to the games but I'm not going to get excited about the Champions League until the quarterfinals and that's when you first see the first great games yeah yeah so there's all these games there's no jeopardy involved the La Liga as an example has been cratered it used to be a really competitive league Athletic Bilbao won back to back titles in the 80s so did Real Sociedad you had Valencia in the early 2000s under Benitez they won two league titles those guys will never win a La Liga title again it's Barca Madrid every season the Premier League yeah is competitive there's the big six or big five plus Spurs but in the other leagues it's Bayern Munich Paris Saint-Germain Italy's kind of they say that they say that

50:56Mario Rosenstock:just because you're from Barcelona but Barcelona Real Madrid is still one of the great Clasicos isn't it?

51:05Helenio Herrera:Oh it is it's the biggest Is it really?

51:08Mario Rosenstock:Would you Oh yeah by numbers

51:09Helenio Herrera:yeah by eyeballs when there's a Clasico like there's hundreds of millions of people watching it because the best players in the world like you have to go back to 2004 for a player who won the Ballon d 'Or who wasn't a Barca or Madrid player except for Rodri two years ago but even Dembélé was next Barca you know all the big players look at the players now that Madrid have Mbappé Vinicius Bellingham is on a downward spiral but and then Barca have Pedri and Lamin Imal like Pedri is an incredible player

51:47Mario Rosenstock:and Lamin Imal is still a teenager is he?

51:49Helenio Herrera:He's still 18 like he's isn't it unbelievable he seems to be in

51:53Mario Rosenstock:around forever how good he is and then the one I would love to go and see though is apart from Barcelona and things oh super classical yeah that's the one that's the one Bocan River is the one I'd love to go and see yeah proper atmosphere bring your bring your helmet and your gum shield it's a dream yeah yeah it must have been great when Maradona used to emerge over the balcony of Boca can you imagine can you imagine Remember the fact that you're in Barcelona and you love Maradona and of course Maradona spent a couple of great years in Barcelona. The highlight or the low light of which was his butcher of Bilbao, Goykechea.

52:32Helenio Herrera:Yeah, he interviewed him about the... He keeps the boot that he used to... Listeners, again, if you want to know what we're talking about,

52:40Mario Rosenstock:just YouTube, Maradona, Maradona, Barcelona and Goykechea. Goykechea is one of those G-O-I-E-X-C-H-E-A kind of names but he was Antonio Goiccea or something was his name and he was a defender Anthony Anthony Anthony and he was a he was a ruthless centre back and his duty during this particular match was to just beat the shit out of Maradona and Maradona isn't having any of it Yeah

53:08Helenio Herrera:yeah there was a running feud they they supplanted Real Madrid as Barca's big rival at the time they they hated each other There was a fierce rivalry. Athletic Bilbao were winning league titles at that time. They're a great team. And they had several pitch battles, most infamously at the end of the 83-84 season. It just turned into kung fu fighting. It's amazing footage. But earlier, was it in the first, Maradona's first or second season? I think it was early in his second season. Goal Kacheya hacked him down and broke his ankle. but he keeps that boot he was wearing for that game in a glass case and he's sitting around as a trophy a trophy yeah my god and I saw some lovely footage there

53:58Mario Rosenstock:recently of Maradona playing in Lansdowne Road as well Argentina versus Ireland in 1979 yes

54:07Helenio Herrera:amazing footage amazing footage just waltzing around

54:10Mario Rosenstock:but playing against some very good players as well Irish players had some very good players

54:16Helenio Herrera:That was a great team back then You know the Giles' and the Brady's Tony Grealish Giles yeah maybe just after Giles' time but Brady yeah Dave O 'Leary Frank Stapleton I think in that same tour

54:30Mario Rosenstock:in that same tour he played against Scotland and he played against England as well and my God he made absolute monkeys out of England in Wembley and they were there they had heard about this kid Maradona because of course it was before the 1982 World Cup and during the 1978 World Cup a lot of the public wanted an 18-year-old Maradona to play for Argentina because he was already regarded as the best player and Carlos, was it Carlos Bilardo or Minotti? Minotti, Minotti, yeah. Minotti, cigarette smoking Minotti, yeah. They didn't pick him for some reason.

55:06Helenio Herrera:But yeah, but they reconvened then. He was the coach at Barca over Maradona he adjusted the training times he moved them from the morning to the afternoon Maradona could go to the nightclubs both social yeah and Manati Manati was worse very good oh my god yeah but it made sense he was and I presume you've seen

55:25Mario Rosenstock:Asif Kapadia's documentary which was using home movie footage only isn't it it's brilliant I urge anybody out there if you haven't seen Maradona the documentary by Asif Kapadia yeah

55:38Helenio Herrera:yeah yeah

55:39Mario Rosenstock:it's super

55:40Helenio Herrera:go on Richard yeah Kenny Dalglish one he's just brought out as well is is very good

55:46Mario Rosenstock:well listen Richard I'm going to plug your book here now again and I'm going to do it in the intro when we sign off so the book is Helenio Herrera Master of the Dark Arts the story of this amazing Jose Mourinho like manager the first superstar manager in world football who managed the Grande Inter team of course in the 60s to a couple of European Cups and many league titles as well and then he did other league titles around the world as well and had a fascinating life story of which it's all in this book.

56:15Helenio Herrera:Great stuff.

56:16Mario Rosenstock:An absolute pleasure talking to you Richard and maybe we'll hook up again some other time to talk about more general matters in football sometime.

56:23Helenio Herrera:Absolutely, we'd love it. That would be brilliant.

56:25Mario Rosenstock:Thank you so much Richard. And my thanks to Richard Fitzpatrick for that fascinating chat and I'd love to get Richard on again. As you can imagine there are lots more areas we could veer down to and I will endeavour to get him back on again. You can get in contact with me of course. It's mariorosenstock at gmail.com. I read them all and I get back to most of them. Anything you like, constructive criticism, suggestions for guests, sketches, new characters, or just, you know, fluff me up, tell me how great this podcast is. And if you don't, please tell one other person that you like the podcast.

56:57Mario Rosenstock:That's all I ask. One other person. You wouldn't believe how it takes off if one other person just tells one other person. Get in touch if you want to have a chat. Bye.

57:10You you