During the 2020 season, in his first year as Barcelona SC coach, Fabián Bustos was the subject of criticism for his working method related to the application of tactical systems.
He assures that due to "unfounded criticism that confused the listener," he chose not to continue listening or watching football analysis programs last year. At the same time, the coach admits that he likes to stay updated, collecting data and statistics, so he found a way to keep up with the press reports. Although he insists that he disconnected completely, because last Saturday, in a chat with EL UNIVERSO, he recognized that he measured the impact of the result of Barcelona's first preseason friendly against Manta FC, played on January 31 in Portoviejo, where his club came back to win 4-2. "You can't relax," warns the 51-year-old Argentine.
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His goal this year, says Bustos, is to reach "as high as possible" in the Libertadores Cup, but "step by step." "Hopefully, we can reach the semifinals. It's very difficult, but dreaming costs nothing," he says. Locally, he hopes to achieve the bicampeonato, a record that has been elusive since 1980-1981.
About Otto Vieira
In the same line, Bustos was asked by EL UNIVERSO if he knew that the Brazilian Otto Vieira was the last coach to win two consecutive titles with the yellow team in 1970-1971. In fact, Vieira is the coach with the most titles in the club's history: three, in 1970, 1971, and 1980.
"Yes, I knew that fact. Alfaro Moreno and Aquiles Álvarez (president and sports vice president of the club, respectively) told me that Barcelona had not been bicampeón for 40 years. And from the moment they told me, that bug entered me, and that is one of our goals: to try to win the bicampeonato." And he continued: "Statistics fascinate me, they motivate me, they give me strength. Hopefully, we can continue making history."
'More can be written'
The "Toro" Bustos has been in charge of directing Barcelona for a year and almost two months, a task that he did not dismiss when it was proposed to him and that he continues to value these days. "When I took over on December 16, 2019, I said I did not want to be a coach who just passed by. I said I wanted to enter history (of the club), and I think we have already written a part of history, but this can still be written and we will go for that," he recalled.
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The Barça coach understands very well that the first thing to make a mark at Barcelona is to win more Ecuadorian championships and at least equal, in the Copa Libertadores, the campaigns of his compatriots Miguel Ángel Brindisi (in 1990) and Rubén Darío Insúa (in 1998), both finalists in America.
For now, Bustos has set out to repeat, at the continental level, what Uruguayan Guillermo Almada achieved in 2017 when he took Barcelona to the semifinals. However, Bustos does not talk about using Barcelona as a springboard to reach the national team or for powerful clubs in South America or Mexico to set their sights on him. That is why he refers to his stay at the club as "the place I always wanted to reach." But he recognizes that football is "so dynamic that things change from one day to the next," and he cannot guarantee how long he will be in the torero's bench, although he insists that he enjoys his work at Barcelona and feels happy.
His contract ends next December. "Yes, I would like to complete a long cycle," he says. Maybe not 22 years (or maybe), like Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, but like Almada, who between 2015 and 2019 was the coach with the longest tenure in recent times. (D)