Javier Sanchez Broto

[ICTChris]

Hands up if you love Getafe

Getafe's gambling goalie might be a few pairs short of a glove shop, but the Primera Division minnows have responded to Spain's youngest manager to survive their top-flight debut and book another, says Sid Lowe

Monday April 18, 2005

Francisco Javier Sánchez Broto; just your typical unhinged goalkeeper (Luis Bago/Getty)

 

While Imelda Marcos had her shoes and Nelson Mandela has his hideous shirts, Francisco Javier Sánchez Broto has his goalie gloves. Lots and lots and lots of them. He might not have earned the undisputed right to indulge in such sartorial excess as Mandela has, or married the right to do so like Imelda, but that's never stopped the Getafe goalkeeper when it comes to oversized rubberised palms, smelly hands and natty Velcro wrists embossed with his name.

You see, the former Airdrie, Livingston and Celtic (and Villarreal, Castellón, Malaga, Zaragoza and Murcia) keeper has made something of a name for himself when it comes to gloves. By setting up a website and superstore in Zaragoza, soloporteros.com (onlygoalkeepers.com), which sells everything a goalkeeper could ever, ever need - including sticky-palm gel, padded pants and teach-yourself-blame-shifting manuals. And, of course, gloves - over 10,000 pairs of them.

Actually, make that 5,000. And, carry on like this and there won't be any left, because Sánchez Broto isn't just a pretty face with big hands, he also really loves to gamble his money (and his gloves) away, thanks to his time in Scotland. As the man himself, admirably avoiding the words Tennent's, Extra, park and bench, put it: "As it gets dark at 3 o'clock in Scotland and there's nowhere to go and nothing to do, I started gambling. It became a real passion and it's one of the nicest things I brought back with me. I really got into it."

That's no exaggeration, either; and nor is there any remorse. Sánchez Broto took his former goalkeeping coach from Livingston to training in a helicopter after losing one bet and there's been no slowing up since he returned to Spain, especially when he's spotted a chance to merge betting with a spot of free advertising. For, if there's one thing the Getafe keeper loves even more than a punt, it's a cunning punt (that's c then p; he's not a Richard Whiteley fan).

Earlier this season he bet Getafe would beat Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu and that, if they failed, he would provide a free pair of gloves to every goalkeeper in Spain's second, second b, and third divisions. Or his latest offering this weekend: posing amidst a pile of gloves and in a T-shirt cunningly bearing the name of his shop, he bet 5,000 pairs that Getafe would beat Barcelona.

Yes, Sánchez Broto has a gambling problem all right. The problem, of course, being that he always, always loses. A desperately unlucky 2-0 defeat at the Bernabéu saw Spain's lower league goalkeepers donning his gloves for free, and this weekend's trip to Camp Nou cost him 5,000 more, with Ronaldinho finally back to his best and leading Barcelona to a comfortable 2-0 win. Still, at least the goalie could console himself with the thought that neither goal was his fault and that neither came from Deco - the man who took on his bet.

And, of course, with the fact that, in the end, it didn't really matter all that much (not that you would have guessed it from the way Getafe's players buried the hatchet - in Barça players' legs). Last night should have been a do-or-die clash, a battle for survival for little Getafe, a club playing in the first division for the first ever time, whose ground is laughably called the Coliseum (pretty much akin to calling a Vauxhall Nova 'Knightrider') and stands proudly alongside a knot of motorways on the edge of a grim Madrid satellite town, and whose fans mostly support Atlético.

Instead, it was Getafe's big night out, a fun-filled, once in a lifetime, pressure-free trip to Barcelona for the whole squad, even those suffering injuries. A chance to revel in unexpected survival for a team made up of cast-offs and kids, who everyone thought was doomed. All in front of 80,000 fans - and the injured Samuel Eto'o, dressed in brilliant white from trilby to toe, up in the stands.

Because, with six games to go Getafe are 13th, 14 points clear of the bottom three, all of whom are utterly doomed - Numancia, Albacete, and Mallorca. And, not only are Getafe safe, they've also managed to debut in the top flight with a win at San Mamés, the "cathedral" of Spanish football, and victory over Real Madrid.

It's an incredible achievement for a club with virtually no cash; an achievement that owes much to the intelligence and analytical mind of the always immaculately presented Quique Sánchez Flores. In his first season in management, the Getafe coach is the youngest in Spain - just two months older than Amadeo Carboni, who's still playing for Valencia, where Flores himself spent ten years as a player.

Nephew of legendary flamenco singer Lola Flores, Quique married a woman named Patricia and has kids called Paul and George (well, Pablo and Jorge), only missing out on the Fab Four because the other two are called, er, Quique and Patricia. Which is a teensy bit sad but fear not, for when it comes to football he has proven far more imaginative. A regular tactical analyst in Marca, Flores got his coaching break with Real Madrid's youth team and is almost pathologically fond of squiggly lines and arrows, strategy and organisation - capable of switching in and out of styles and formations.

He's also a stickler for professionalism - insisting, while everyone else was hinting at a little monetary "incentive" from Madrid to try even harder against Barça, that he wasn't interested - and rigid organisation. It's a vision he is more than capable of imposing on the players, too. They have, he says, trained harder than any team he has ever seen.

But it's not all about imposition. Flores is a listener, too. When striker Rikki went down injured against Real Sociedad at Anoeta, he called out: "Boss, I'm injured. Get Pachón warmed up." Quique turned to Pachón and said, "Well, you heard him."

No wonder Getafe's players insist that the real secret of their success is unity among the squad and between players and manager. "You can tell Quique has been a player; in fact I think he still is at heart," says Rikki. "He understands us really well and we can share all our problems with him." Even gambling ones.

[BishyTON]

Bloody hell! I would like to take him up on some of his wild bets. Could make a fortune out of that easily.