Johan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola, the Spain of Tiki-Taka, Barça del Sextete … When talking about playing football well, they are the names that are recited as a psalm. Those coaches who made the short pass and possession a high art. However, this game is not won with beautiful words or modernist verses. In football what counts, as in life, is to survive. And in that field, the resistance captain is JOSÉ BORLÁLAS.
His style, nicknamed 'La Bordaleta', represents what many purists hate: loss of time, high pressure to the limit of the regulation, compact replicues and a fierce cult of the effort. It is not a sinfonia of touches; This noise, sweat, mud. But it is also effectiveness, conviction and result. If football were an opera, Embroidery He would direct a group of pirates challenging the system. Or, as I sang Joaquín Sabinait would be that 'lame pirate, with stick leg, with a patch in the eye, with a bad face'.
And it is that Bordalás has been sailing in brave seas three decades. Since he debuted on the benches in 1993 with the subsidiary of the Alicant cfhis career has been a journey of unlikely promotions and silent gestures. Ascended to You will Vivasta To First Regional, to the Alicant cf He took it from a preferential regional to Second B and classified it for the Copa del Rey. Passed through Benidorm, Eldense, Novelda o Alcoyanowith whom he touched the promotion to second in 2009 with a modest budget. In 2010, he touched the glory with the Elche CF: he left the team to a goal to go up to First against the Granada. But there was no prize. Even so, he kept rowing.
Read too
If any mud coach was given to choose from among all possible trajectories, I would surely choose Bordalás. As the song follows: 'Among all lives, I choose that of the lame pirate … with eye patch.' A life that does not promise luxuries, but it does battle.
When he arrived at the Getafe In 2016, the Madrid team was 21st in Second. It ended third and rose it in the play-off. First, it was 8th, then 5th, then 8 again. In 2021 he left the club as an idol. But there was more journey. Peter Lim called him to rescue a Valencia burning. And there, with hardly margin, he took him to a Cup final and left him 9th in the League. He was fired (of course) with the coldness of those who do not understand that miracles are not improvised.
Upon him Getafe In 2023, he took the team in descent positions, with seven days to play. Salvation in extremis before the Real Valladolid. Automatic renewal. Seven games are enough in the Casa Azulona to become captain of his old ship.
If Bordalás were given to choose between all possible lives, I would not want to be a painter in Montparnasse, or photographer in Playboy, nor tenor in Rigoletto. Because he was not born for luxury cruises, but to navigate storms. He does not direct talent orchestras, but brave crews.
Every season, its Getafe Challenge expectations, annoy the greats and burst the narrative. In a football written by the usual, Bordalás represents the coach who works in silence, who does not seduce with flourishes, but leaves a mark. He has converted retales templates into armies willing to die in the pressure, to fight each band serve as if it were a penalty.
Your proposal may not be in the romantic style manuals of the ball. But it is his, honest, and effective. As the pirate of Sabina, it is known differently and celebrates it: 'With a pair of warm and a flag skull'.
In short, the Bordalás game may not like all palates, but their legacy is undeniable. Because in the end, in football as in life, he does not win the one that sings best, but the one that stands until the last chord. And that, José Bordalás has made him art.
