Pablo Hernandez is settling Champions League scores

Last week, Pablo Hernandez was part of a Castellon squad given a motivational speech by Jorge Valdano, a World Cup winner with Argentina as a player and a former manager of Real Madrid. Valdano joked to the Castellon players about his uncomfortable situation. Castellon’s next fixture, the one Valdano was meant to be motivating them for, was against Real Madrid Castilla, his old club’s B team. Castilla are managed by former Real striker Raúl, who Valdano has known for almost thirty years.

Valdano’s association with Real Madrid extends to winning five trophies in three years as their player in the 1980s, and coaching their youth team. When he took over at Tenerife, in his first job as a manager, he was phoned by Real president Ramon Mendoza, thanking him for presiding over a win against Barcelona that Mendoza assumed had secured the title for Real with six games remaining. Mendoza wasn’t banking on Valdano’s Tenerife coming back from 2-0 down to beat Real 3-2 on the final day of the season, making Barcelona the champions, and convincing Real to hire him.

Over the last few years Valdano has been telling anyone willing to listen that Raúl can be Real Madrid’s equivalent to Pep Guardiola or Diego Simeone, adamant their former captain will establish a dynasty with the first team if he’s ever promoted from managing the Castilla. Valdano first saw Raúl playing for Real Madrid’s academy against Tenerife, calling the young striker a “spermatozoid”. After leaving Tenerife for the Bernabeu, one of his first jobs at Real was convincing Raúl not to join Atletico Madrid, after being told he would not be given the funds to sign Eric Cantona. “The fact is that I met with him and convinced him not to go to Atleti, which was more his father’s idea than his own,” Valdano said. “He says in his book that my words sounded like music to him.”

If there’s one person Valdano loves more than Raúl, it’s Marcelo Bielsa. They have been friends since the age of fifteen, when they met in the Newell’s Old Boys talent factory devised by Jorge Griffa. Valdano had a far more successful playing career than Bielsa, but they have remained respectful of each other’s subsequent paths. “He is the most interesting person I have ever met in my career,” Valdano said in 2012. Bielsa was sitting next to Valdano on a flight to England for Euro ‘96 when he casually turned to his friend and asked, “After losing a match, have you never thought about killing yourself?”

Pablo Hernandez posted about meeting Valdano to his Instagram stories. He didn’t mention it, but they must have chatted about Bielsa, surely? One of the reasons Valdano has such respect for Bielsa is what he describes as his “tremendous ethical rigour”, instilled from childhood. “And I think that’s where he makes a big difference, with his way of understanding football, without ever taking it outside the rules, with opinions that help us to think,” he told Argentine radio a year ago. Maybe after speaking about Bielsa, Valdano mentioned his admiration for Raúl to Pablo. And maybe Pablo responded by asking Valdano, if he likes sticking to the rules so much, what did he make of Raúl cheating against Leeds, by punching the ball into the net to score a decisive goal in a Champions League defeat at the Bernabeu in 2001?

Or maybe not. But Pablo has seen things, so I wouldn’t put it past him to have seen that. How else could you explain him inspiring Castellon to a 3-0 win over Raúl’s Castilla side with a left, right, good night salvo of a goal and an assist thirteen minutes apart? Castellon were already winning 1-0 when Hernandez showed his brain is still working faster than his peers, reacting quickest to a deflected shot and placing the ball into the bottom corner to score for the first time since his league debut back in August. That goal came away at Alacete, so back in Castellon this was the moment the small pocket of ‘ultras’ behind the goal had been waiting for, rushing to the front of the stand behind the goal, where they had draped a banner of the Castellon badge done in the style of the Stone Island logo. Any air of intimidation from this was undone by what sounded like a Crazy Frog remix of Seven Nation Army playing over the tannoy.

Kialy Kone scored Castellon’s third, but by the time he was tapping in at the back post, his teammates were already running to celebrate with Hernandez, whose pass across goal created the easy chance. It was Hernandez’s first assist of the season. I can’t speak Spanish, but Castellon’s local radio commentary team seemed to enjoy it. It’s nice to know they refer to him only as ‘Pablo’ or ‘El Mago’ too.

Afterwards Pablo’s expression when meeting Leeds fans that were visiting Castellon was not that of a man who had just spent his afternoon settling scores from a Champions League campaign that took place when he was still a teenager. But we know Leeds United and Marcelo Bielsa remain in his heart. So on the off chance Jorge Valdano is reading, make sure you pick your sides more wisely next time. ⬢