Quique Cárcel, Girona’s sports director, hopes to keep the Uruguayan striker Cristhian Stuani in his squad, because he is “very identified” with the project of this club that this Saturday can certify a new promotion to the first division of Spanish football.
In an interview with EFE, the Girona sports director also assures that ‘Big Data’ helps him, but that intuition is part of 80% of his decisions, while explaining how the association with a giant like Manchester City.
A promotion and four ‘playoffs’ in the last seven years endorse the work of the manager of the Catalan club who puts Villarreal as an example. This Saturday they have the opportunity to make a good 3-0 in the first leg against Almería and play another final to return to LaLigaSantander.
We have seen transfers in recent years such as the one from Portu to Real Sociedad, the option to purchase a Bond by Sevilla … do you have the prospect of making a transfer a year or is it emerging?
We are a club where you want to bet on young people, those who leave the academy or those who are on loan from Manchester City and who have a special and different talent; looking for a club growth in which there has to be sales. If you are in the First Division, everything is much easier, but the club has a line of work to seek that there are young players that we can put in value for the future.
This year in the starting team in recent days, between seven and nine Under-23 players have finished and that is something that I think is difficult in a League like the Second Division in which everyone is very prepared. We have brought out very young people like Arnau, Bueno, Santi, Ibrahima, Terrats … those on loan from Manchester City … our idea is this. If we are in First it will be easier and if not we will have to think about sales because the budgets are what they are.
However, they have managed to keep Stuani in the team after relegation and after scoring 31 goals in the Second Division. Was it very difficult to retain him?
Stuani has felt in Girona something that he needed. He is very happy here on a family level and has felt like a very important player. The relegation event was a difficult moment for him in terms of having doubts as to whether he saw himself playing in the Second Division after scoring 21 goals in the first division. He picked up the baton, scored 31 goals, but with a final feeling of sadness and weakness due to the expulsion he had in the last game against Elche. He had mixed feelings after giving a lot, but not being able to get the promotion.
He is very identified with this project, he feels that his site is here. He wants to move the team up to the First Division and stay here. That is their mentality, another thing is that football, due to its economic resources, allows it to be like that. So far it has been and we hope that in the future we can continue working together because it would be the best.
How do you work from the sports management with the relationship you have as a club with Manchester City?
We have been working for five or six years in a way in which decisions are made here. It is true that we have grown a lot by their side because they are very soccer people and they know very well what this business is like and how to work. We have helped each other a lot because it has a very important network of scouts where access to information is very large and where ‘Big Data’ is brutal.
I can assure you that at the decision-making level it is done from here. At certain times it is agreed on in terms of the valuation of footballers because they know all their data and we work a lot hand in hand.
You are one of the emerging sports directors in Spain. He cited the issue of ‘Big Data’, which is already a classic in the world of football. How far in your case does the use of the data go at the time of collection? In what percentage does it move between intuition and ‘Big Data’?
I want to emphasize that nowadays sports management is very professionalized. There are supervalid people and that must be highlighted. Yes, it is true that ‘Big Data’ has become fashionable and it must be given value because it corroborates the information or intuition that it must have. For me, intuition is the first in the aspect that each club can agree to reach a different type of player.
Each team has its reality and budgets make certain decisions have to be made. And the first thing is intuition. You have to know the good player at the bad moment that he is in order to reach him. That, obviously, the ‘Big Data’ is not going to give it to you, it is going to give you bad numbers. You can’t always be thinking that ‘Big Data’ is going to corroborate everything you have, that’s why you have to have intuition, make a decision and play it. That’s my way of looking at it. Obviously, ‘Big Data’ can make you see that, two, three or four years ago that player had a level so that you can bet on him. You have to help. My percentage would tell you about 80% intuition and 20% ‘Big Data’. EFE. (JL).