Juanma Lillo, the creator of 4-2-3-1 system speaks with Sid lowe.
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Juanma Lillo, a philosophically inclined coach, emphasizes the importance of the process in football over the end result, advocating for a playing style that prioritizes positioning and collective interaction. His coaching philosophy revolves around empathy, self-discovery, and facilitating players' understanding of their roles, challenging the competitive and individualistic nature prevalent in contemporary society. Despite his influential role in shaping coaching ideals, Lillo reflects on the limitations of a coach's authority and the importance of understanding player dynamics within a team.
![The Brain in Spain
who plays and who doesn’t. Otherwise,
who would do it? But beyond that, I
wouldn’t try to establish a role, given
our limited importance. This is a game,
played by players. Those [coaches]
who have expressed their significance
seem to want to claim some personal
protagonism or status through others.
Our role is less than many coaches
realise or want to believe. That said,
within those limitations there are things
you can outline. First, though, you have
to talk about the difference between
a professional sphere and a formative
sphere. You have to ask what is a
coach? Some are more didactic, some
have a desire for protagonism, some
are orthodox, some aren’t. Some are
stimulated by competition, others by the
game itself.
And in your case?
Bear in mind that I started very young.
At 16 I was already a coach. I wasn’t a
player and that has obliged me to be
closer to my players, to seek complicity.
That alters your outlook. I wanted to be
a player, that’s the thing. My vocación
[vocation] with a ‘V’ was being a player;
my bocación [from boca, mouth] with
a ‘B’ is being a coach: I’m a coach to
feed myself. All coaches are amalgams
of things but I consider myself didactic.
I want to facilitate players gaining a
consciousness about what they are
and what they are doing. It’s not just
about the game; it’s about people.
It is about everything. Nothing can
be de-contextualised. How you live,
what you are, what importance you
give to relationships, to behaviour, to
interaction… all of that effects how a
team plays. In our society, there are
loads of teachers but few educators, few
facilitators. As [the Spanish philosopher
and writer] Francisco Umbral said,
every day people are better qualified,
but less educated. People have MBAs,
or an MBB, an MBC — but they can’t
cross the road, still less have the
empathy to see things from the point
of view of others. Academia is trying
to turn us into machines. As far as my
work is concerned, empathy is vital. A
person performs better in any working
environment in a good atmosphere than
in a bad one. You have to make players
conscious of things that maybe he can’t
see. Not least because these days playing
in a team is harder and harder…
Why?
Because society is not set up like that;
society drives you towards individualism.
Football is a collective sport; you have
to treat it as such. Everyone has their
own way of being, you encourage
relationships, association. To do that, you
have to make sure there’s the smallest
possible difference between what you
do and what you say. You have to be
porous: can you listen? Can you direct?
There are three types of authority: formal
authority, technical authority and personal
authority. I don’t want formal authority,
via someone else’s power, the position of
‘coach’ or ‘boss’. Authority is not
something you impose; it is something
that is conceded to you by those with
whom you interact. I want to try to
encourage self-discovery among players,
dialogue and understanding. It is complex
and shifting. You orientate people rather
than order them. You balance, you adapt,
you listen. Human beings are open; there
is no answer that definitively closes any
debate. It’s not just that what works with
one player doesn’t work with another; it is](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/issueonesample-130427013039-phpapp01/85/Juanma-Lillo-the-creator-of-4-2-3-1-system-speaks-with-Sid-lowe-3-320.jpg)
Juanma Lillo, the creator of 4-2-3-1 system speaks with Sid lowe.
- 1. 47Theory “What enriches you is the game, not the result. The result is a piece of data. The birth rate goes up. Is that enriching? No. But the process that led to that? Now that’s enriching.”
- 2. The Brain in Spain The Brain in Spain Juanma Lillo, mentor to Pep Guardiola, explains his thinking on clubs, coaching and why society is sick By Sid Lowe The youngest man to ever coach in the Spanish First Division and the ‘inventor’ of 4-2-3-1, blessed of an inquisitive and inventive mind, Juanma Lillo has always been considered something of a fooballing philosopher — even by those critics who think that theory is one thing, reality another. This is the man that regularly turns the relationship upside down — a footballer manager berating journalists for using meaningless clichés. A man who loves a dialectic battle, boasts a library of 10,000 volumes and a complete collection of the world’s foremost football magazines and newspapers, and talks at length on theories of complexity, he is a determined defender of an expansive footballing style, placing positioning over all else, especially brute force. It is a style given expression, many years later, by Barcelona and the Spanish national team. To his lasting regret, Lillo never made it as a professional player — “I would, he says, “give it all back for 15 minutes on the pitch” — but he became a familiar face on the bench all over Spain. For a while at least. When he took over at Almería last season, it was a return to the First Division for the first time in a decade. Meanwhile, he had been in Mexico, where he coached Pep Guardiola. Actually, ‘coached’ is a rather inadequate word. Guardiola has never hidden his admiration for Lillo, describing him as the coach that, along with Johan Cruyff, had the greatest influence upon him. And when Lillo talks about Barcelona, he can’t help talking about ‘we’. He has guided Guardiola and, during his first months as Barcelona B coach, and then first-team manager, he unofficially helped prepare Guardiola’s sessions. It could have been official once: when Lluis Bassat ran for the presidential elections in 2003, his sporting director was going to be Guardiola. The coach? Juanma Lillo. Bassat, though, lost. Six years would pass before Guardiola took over. Officially, Lillo had no role at all — even though his fingerprints were all over the project. But fate can be cruel and earlier this season, Lillo was sacked as Almeria coach after an 8-0 defeat. To Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona. You once said that you understood why presidents sacked coaches, what you couldn’t understand is why they hired them in the first place. Have you worked it out yet? What’s a coach for? What is your role? First, there is the question of your formal role. On a very basic level you choose
- 3. The Brain in Spain who plays and who doesn’t. Otherwise, who would do it? But beyond that, I wouldn’t try to establish a role, given our limited importance. This is a game, played by players. Those [coaches] who have expressed their significance seem to want to claim some personal protagonism or status through others. Our role is less than many coaches realise or want to believe. That said, within those limitations there are things you can outline. First, though, you have to talk about the difference between a professional sphere and a formative sphere. You have to ask what is a coach? Some are more didactic, some have a desire for protagonism, some are orthodox, some aren’t. Some are stimulated by competition, others by the game itself. And in your case? Bear in mind that I started very young. At 16 I was already a coach. I wasn’t a player and that has obliged me to be closer to my players, to seek complicity. That alters your outlook. I wanted to be a player, that’s the thing. My vocación [vocation] with a ‘V’ was being a player; my bocación [from boca, mouth] with a ‘B’ is being a coach: I’m a coach to feed myself. All coaches are amalgams of things but I consider myself didactic. I want to facilitate players gaining a consciousness about what they are and what they are doing. It’s not just about the game; it’s about people. It is about everything. Nothing can be de-contextualised. How you live, what you are, what importance you give to relationships, to behaviour, to interaction… all of that effects how a team plays. In our society, there are loads of teachers but few educators, few facilitators. As [the Spanish philosopher and writer] Francisco Umbral said, every day people are better qualified, but less educated. People have MBAs, or an MBB, an MBC — but they can’t cross the road, still less have the empathy to see things from the point of view of others. Academia is trying to turn us into machines. As far as my work is concerned, empathy is vital. A person performs better in any working environment in a good atmosphere than in a bad one. You have to make players conscious of things that maybe he can’t see. Not least because these days playing in a team is harder and harder… Why? Because society is not set up like that; society drives you towards individualism. Football is a collective sport; you have to treat it as such. Everyone has their own way of being, you encourage relationships, association. To do that, you have to make sure there’s the smallest possible difference between what you do and what you say. You have to be porous: can you listen? Can you direct? There are three types of authority: formal authority, technical authority and personal authority. I don’t want formal authority, via someone else’s power, the position of ‘coach’ or ‘boss’. Authority is not something you impose; it is something that is conceded to you by those with whom you interact. I want to try to encourage self-discovery among players, dialogue and understanding. It is complex and shifting. You orientate people rather than order them. You balance, you adapt, you listen. Human beings are open; there is no answer that definitively closes any debate. It’s not just that what works with one player doesn’t work with another; it is
- 4. Sid Lowe that what worked with one player doesn’t work with the same player at a different time and under different circumstances. In practical terms, what does your work entail? The first day you turn up at a club, what do you do? The first thing I do is have a personal meeting with every player. I turn up with loads of information and data about them. I want to confirm that information, verify it and challenge them with it. What does he think when he hears that? You can’t be more open or honest than to tell a player what you have been told about him. I could keep that information to myself and establish a prejudice, but I don’t. There’s no greater act of sincerity than to tell a player what prejudices, what pre- established thoughts, I have about them. We all have prejudices — both good ones and bad ones. I show them mine, looking them in the eye. The next day, I tell the whole group. I show them what they think of themselves and the team, I hold up a mirror. Often you learn the most from their self-perception… I speak to people who know players, who have shared a dressing- room with them, who have coached them. If I can talk to their parents, so much the better. Then you have to know how to use that information. In footballing terms, how do you set up your teams? The obvious, if simplistic, thing is that a coach gets to a club and thinks: who is my right-back, who is my left-back, who is my central midfielder and so on… ? In my case, it’s not like that. When you get a to a team 80 percent or more is already constructed; you have to see if you’re going to clash a lot with what is already there… you have to go and learn from the players, not the other way round. Everything has to work together, amongst them. My mentality is interaction and relation. If you say, “let’s evaluate the right-back”, I say, “but who’s alongside him? Who is in front of him? Who is nearest to him?” You’ve said before that there is no such thing as attack and defence? Of course. How can attack and defence exist if we don’t have the ball? How can one exist without the other? But people need to communicate, so there is a reduction of concepts, a simplification. I understand that. The thing is, you have to be able to reduce without impoverishing. And that goes for everything. You can’t take things out of their context because they are no longer the same thing, even if you then plan to piece things back together again. You can’t take an arm off Rafa Nadal and train it separately. If you did, when you put it back in it may create an imbalance, a rejection from the organism. How can you gain strength for football outside of football? If you run over there, what you are training for is running over there, not playing football.