Football has never been so much a matter of styles. Perhaps, the greatest study and the proliferation of thousands of parameters have given it scientific consideration. In the King’s Cup Final that Betis took against Valencia on penalties, the philosophy of two different coaches in almost everything except their profession was revealed. Pellegrini and Bordalás they tied in regulation time and only eleven meters designated a winner.
The one prior to the duel was blurred with a crossing of statements that seemed programmed by the trajectories of the two teams. An Betis athletic favorite dress and a Valencia that I had been thinking about a final in which the season was played for too long. He lost. With it, the Europa League and the opportunity for quiet planning.
victory from the hotel
But the battle of styles was equal to equal, despite the different vital paths of the Chilean and the Alicante. The first, with the military medal table of a Premier, the national tournaments with River or San Lorenzo, the Chile Cup… A trophy was missing from the display case that resisted him in the Real Madrid, Villarreal or Malaga. “Since we left the hotel I knew we were going to win,” he assured after the duel, although the feeling lasted until extra time and the penalty shootout.
Pellegrini got one more merit at the cost of leaving Bordalás with a blow, who was planted in his first grand final. He wanted to change the matter of the trance in the previous one, saying that he had already played games of this type, such as the promotion playoffs. He showed it, responding appropriately to the goal against Borja Iglesias and managing to bring the game to his ground during one phase of the match.
“You had to play,” he warned. Gaya in the previous day, reluctant to give, without further ado, the favorite band to Betis. Y the verdiblancos they needed to ignore the scheduled to accept the fray in which it ends up becoming a final. He knew how to win Betis well, infallible from eleven meters and awarding a title to his fans 17 years later.
“There are many ways to play, to win and they are all legal. Luckily with this style people enjoy. We are entitled to give a show and that show is to win in the most attractive way possible. In addition, our way of playing attracts the Betis fan“, Pellegrini reoffended, after his way of understanding football was refuted by the result, which is what feeds.
Mourning che well run
But Bordalás took the defeat well, responding with integrity, next to a Paulista to which the words did not come out. A footballer who hastened his recovery to the maximum to be in the final. The man from Alicante exposed him after the defeat to reward him and show the rest the effort that the player had made. He was completely exhausted. “They say we don’t play anything and we have shown the opposite”, said the Brazilian, whom football, as he admitted in an interview with the Valencia channel, freed him from a life of misery.
There is a very important condition in the technician from Alicante: the family. Growing up with nine other siblings makes it easy for him to make the lineups. In fact, it was Ilaix, his great novelty, who designed the goal Hugo Hard. “Proud”, he sentenced after the defeat, which did not upset him at all, unlike what happened with Gayà, for whom not even the memory of the eighth, raised in 2019, consoled him.
Pellegrini and Bordalás they are of different classes, although they invert it perfectly. The first, who always went like a brush to the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile where he studied Civil Engineering, has become accustomed to the tracksuit. And the second, accustomed to the raincoat of the modest teams from which he has been climbing, he has endorsed himself through the suit. Are two paths too opposite so that its staging in the field was not attractive to the viewer, as it finally turned out.
Pellegrini had a first and traumatic experience on the bench: he starred in the only relegation in the history of his club, the Catholic University. He admitted, years later, already settled in the european football, which would be the only thing that I would not repeat. From a very early age he worked on tolerance for frustration and, above all, he assumed that preparation is key to the result. He put a ‘double five’ (double pivot) on Argentina when no one believed in that formula.
Future of Bordalás
Coming from a faculty like engineering has given him a seriousness of comments that football takes too seriously. “The engineering it is a way of dealing with problems through a priority order. There has to be a sequence to generate an exact solution to the circumstances that football faces us. Engineering facilitates this path, because you order the mind”, he reiterated in his day.
Bordalás took other references. He was a seasoned striker in modest categories. Even then he liked to order and see the game beyond the ball. He lost his fear of challenges on his journey through the complicated Levante football, with its ups and downs caused by speculation. Always with a deep sense of loyalty, coming to the rescue of Alcorcón, going up to Alavés that did not opt for its renewal or qualifying for Europe to Getafe.
Their teams and hobbies have understood competitive genetics as a symptom to be proud of. In Charterhouse The feeling was prolonged just when the link between the fans and a coach who thought this final too long in a club that lives intensely from day to day was weakest. “I can’t talk about the future of the Valencia CFI must recover the spirits of my kids”, he warned.
The more discomfort his way of seeing football has generated in the rival, the better result he has given him. And that is why he has become the nemesis of the game without projection. Although in Valencia he has felt misunderstood, harassed by the uncertainty of a projectthe lack of troops in decisive plots for him such as the double pivot and the pressure of a committed but critical hobby. Like the Roman emperors, one of his vital references: “His story has always fascinated me.”, which is not exactly an example of stability, depending on the time.
Although that unrepentant character is what will allow him to continue in the battle of styles, it will never end, not even with the victory of Pellegrini today. Because it is a latent issue that the two will end up developing beyond what happened in a game that does not refute a thesis, but rather validates both as methods to achieve victory. Surely, from now on, Bordalás seeks to turn this blow around while Pellegrini pursues a formula to make victories easier. Just as difficult tasks. Each one with its style. Both inalienable.