Macía: "Ambitious and solid project: we want to improve day by day”

Arriving at the offices in Via Melara this morning, Eduardo Macía, spoke for the first time as Chief Football Officer of Spezia Calcio:

- How was your first impact with Spezia Calcio? 

My first impact is the reason I am here, the challenging opportunity to help to build up some different to make next steps to uplift the pedigree of this football club. Someway to say we are in a F1 race with a car with good foundations we must develop.

- What particularly attracted you to the Platek family's project? 

As we have been extensively talking in our previous meeting and videaocalls, the real opportunity to build up an ambitious project with solidity, understanding well the whole vision of Platek Group from a strategical point of view but keeping in mind where and who we are at the moment to bring constantly improvements. And overall the fact we have given the opportunity to make something different, to bring a cutting edge factor in to be implemented across the football clubs.

- What values do you consider indispensable in your work and what do you expect from your teams?

I have always been considering the competitiveness as a key remarkable point: we cannot make mistake in terms of personality, game understanding and consistency within the team and we have to build up our foundations from that, players who bring in this approach to the game. When you play as the highest level we cannot put technical, tactical or physical aspects above but intensity, decision making on the pitch, high success ratios of play delivering…something like to say “we pay for head and brains not only for feet”. When you get that you boost the whole machine to the next level and you can evolve that to the highest level as the players enjoy competing and do not have the climbing mountain pressure in their minds.

Similar approach we must bring to our Academy boys, then when they pop into the real football they are youngsters ready to play but not simply youngsters. This is the main characteristic of the identity we must develop. Afterwards, and of course, the football style comes: this will be the way we will print our identity on the pitch, and this begins selecting a coach capable to do so, as we have with Gotti, then the players who will develop the process on the pitch.

- Have you already had the chance to talk to coach Luca Gotti? What did you say to each other?

We had an initial positive conversations, specially to bring confidence from my side to keep him motivated and boosting the team through his work. We had a little chat about the squad and its current moment, something we will talk deeply about in the next days. We have a decent season start then from that we need to improve, and to keep always improving, even when we think we are doing well. The football world is so competitive that the minute you relax the sooner you go down…and really fast.

- You will certainly have already seen Spezia Calcio play. What do you think of the squad available to the coach? What margins for improvement do you see?

As I said before, we deliver a decent start, so from that point we will improve. The coach need to see he works usefully and the players need to understand we never stop but we want to bring more success but keeping realistic, giving our 100% and never thinking it will be enough giving less.

- Spezia Calcio's squad is one of the youngest in the league this year. Can it be an added value both in the present and in the future? How do you bring out the best in young players?

It is very interesting; young players play in a very energetic way, somehow fearless and it is positive for the team. Then you have game understanding, intelligence, consistency that balance quite well what the young guys bring in, and it is something we must absolutely have in the tam if we want to perform at the same time we create value.

- In your career you have launched many brilliant young players into the professional world. What is your approach to youth football and what plans do you have for the youth sector?

Many times I think about experience as a comb someone give to you when you are bold. Sometimes the experience keeps you in the past, replicating mistakes because we think that something you did well five years ago still works equally today and does not allow you to see the growing up process you con bring to the football club. This is because I want to deliver youngster ready to play alongside these players with high intelligence level, good game understanding and competitive approach instead of these players who somebody comes and tells you “he has experience, he will be good addition” simply because he played 150 games before. The youngsters feel more the support of consistency and proactive leaders, rather than “guys with experience”. This is a secret: you bring the proactive approach then everybody will become proactive as well step by step.

- In your CV there are mostly very important clubs. Will it be different in an emerging reality like Spezia Calcio?

Football is about challenges, and you must understand what challenges mean depending on the club. There are clear differences between the goals at Liverpool, Valencia or Fiorentina, and the goals at Spezia. But the most important is to keep in mind that, unless you get a final destination goal, you can always improve. Emerging realities need solid foundations, this is the starting challenge and from that we will go up adding improvements until we reach our maximum level. This is in agreement with our strategy: we cannot talk about “salvation” but how we want to reach that goal. Then we will evolve to consider that this goal is not any more an added value but something we left behind but not ignoring.

- La Spezia is a small city, but it has a very warm and passionate fan base. Do you have a message for them?

In terms of behaviour, they show something similar to the passion Liverpool fans always have brought in. Both cities and the people share similarities, the port, nearly the northwest side of the country, the warm they bring to the games and the support they give to the players. They are so proud of their club, and I saw that in the past when I came to the Alberto Picco. I would like to see the passion every minute, at the stadium, on the streets, in the good moments and in the dad moment, but the passion always front up.