Eder Sarabia (Bilbao, 1981) arrives this Sunday at the Olympic Stadium with the halo of having become the revelation coach at the start of the season and for the fact that, at the head of the Elchethe team he coached is measured for the first time, as assistant Quique Setienin the hard times of the pandemic, between the winter and summer of 2020.
It's a peculiar trainerof the coaches who prefer to touch the ball than to bet on the kick, who avoid placing the 'bus' in front of the goal and who reject an effective result, denying any dose of spectacle. With the Elche Promoted, they now occupy eighth place in the table after having achieved the best league start in the history of the Elche club.
The love of the bike
And he enjoys winning on the bench just as much as going out on his bike around Elx. He does it almost every day. Then, happily, he boasts of having crossed the Alicante mountains with Wout van Aert o Mathieu van der Poelcycling stars who train in those places during the winter. Or arriving late to a press conference because you didn't want to miss the last kilometers of a feat of Tadej Pogacar.
When he arrived at Barça with Setien He began to notice a person's habits, Gerard Piquéwho later played a decisive role in his role as soccer coach. After the match, the then Barça centre-back was looking for a corner of the locker room to connect his cell phone and watch the result of the team he presided over and presides over, FC Andorra, a club that changed the lives of Sarabia in all aspects; In the Pyrenean country he had his first opportunity as a full coach and there he met his wife and mother of his two children.
He Andorrawith Sarabia, achieved two historic events. The first to be promoted to the Second Division and the second, which is difficult despite the modest capacity of the country's sports venues, to fill the stands and talk about football beyond Barça, the team that usually fills Andorran souls.
Eder Sarabia greets Ernesto Valverde, in Elx. / ELCHE CF
He encouraged the players in a peculiar way. Remember how he once looked for an impossible comeback. They lost 0-3 at half-time and the players were downcast. With a firm voice he told them that this was not a disaster, that the drama was reaching Lisboain the final phase of an unprecedented Champions League played in the summer of the pandemic, and that Bayern scored eight goals against Barça, a match that marked the end of the Barça stage of the tandem Setién-Sarabia.
The memory of the victory with Betis
Since then he has only returned sportingly to Barcelona to face Barça B and Espanyol (lost 1-0). And now he will look for what would almost be considered a miracle in his adopted Elx. The green and franji team has faced Barça 27 times in the Catalan capital so far and has never achieved victory since the first visit in 1960.
However, Sarabia He does know what it means to beat Barça. He did it when the team Hansi Flick He played at the Camp Nou, with Leo Messi with a Barça figure. Betis members and fans have the date of 11/11/2018 marked in red because that day, with Setien y Sarabia on the green and white bench, they beat Barcelona 3-4 in a spectacular duel.
Was Setien who gave him the opportunity as a coach in 2015. Sarabia He had grown up between Lezama, where Athletic trains, and old San Mamés. He immediately understood that the last name he had was insufficient to succeed as a footballer. His father is Manu Sarabiared and white star, between 1976 and 1988. “I have special treatment with my father at a football level. Every time he sees a player stand out, he sends me the news and tells me 'be careful, this footballer could be interesting'. I owe much of what I know about football to him and we both see this sport in a similar way,” he recalled. doesin an interview given to this newspaper in August 2022, a few days before Andorra's debut in the Second Division.
Eder Sarabia, during training. / ELCHE FC
The training of the Pyrenean team was held behind closed doors. Andorra's communications department had set the interview time at 10 minutes. Sarabia He arrived at the bench and after chatting for more than a quarter of an hour about cycling – he wanted to know all the anecdotes of the Tour – he started talking about football, his passion for his father, the good advice of Setienfrom what he had learned with Messi and company and how he relaxed crowning all the ports of Andorra alongside bike professionals such as José Joaquín Rojastoday director of Movistar.
“Coaching Barça was a real opportunity. I was privileged. It is true that we neither arrived at the best time nor did things turn out as we dreamed. Every day that I got up and went to the Ciutat Esportiva was the happiest in the world.” Setien and his father met playing in the Logroñés. Now the son of one of Athletic's great myths returns to Barcelona with the challenge of seeking a historically impossible victory against his former team.
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