“As a child, I used to come to Gavi’s office to squeeze him” | Relief

Ramon Plains passed through Relevo a few weeks ago to gave his first interview since leaving Betis. The conversation also touched on other topics, such as his stay at Barça, which lasted from the summer of 2018 to the fall of 2021. Some names are constantly linked to his figure, such as Pedri, Araujo or Abde. The Jets also played a major role in the likes of Gavi and Nico Gonzalez. This part of the interview is about them and how they got Frenkie De Jong signed.

Your work at Barça was very difficult because of all the financial restrictions, but of course it was also an opportunity to bet on less established players.

This allowed me to get more out of my understanding and vision of football, my commitment to young people, to the youth team. This is what I identify with as a sporting director. This difficult, very difficult economic situation in Barcelona allowed me to be even more myself, bold and courageous with the youth. I can only speak well of Ronald Koeman. He was very bold in his bets.

Which?

I remember very well, as if it were today, when I told Koeman: “Stick to Gavi and Niko in pre-season”. (Talking about 2021) They were 16 and 18 years old. Gavi had hardly played for the youth team A and Barça B, and I told him: “I want you to see them in pre-season because I think they have a different talent”. Age is obviously another issue. Young players need to be looked after, they cannot be burned, they cannot be kept too long, but I think there is a very wide debate to be opened in this sense. Often players are exposed to danger, they are given too much responsibility that they should not take on at their age, which means you can burn the player out. But on the other hand, when a player has talent and is young, age does not matter, he must be there, you must give him the opportunity to play in the First Division at the highest level. Then you need to know how to dose it, and the club must take care of that. But that difficult time for Barça allowed me to bet on them.

And what is this process of deciding who to bet on?

When I arrived at Barça, I visited a lot of children and cadets and I remember falling in love with Gavi and being impressed by him. Above all, because of the competitiveness he had. I’ll tell you a joke about how sometimes a person makes decisions. As I said, I was going to see a lot of Gavi, this cadet who had very good equipment. I remember I was still very fond of Angel Alarcón, who unfortunately broke his knee in the last game of that league, the Champions Cup in Marbella (2021). And Angel Alarcón was another player from the same generation as Gavi who had to step up; I thought he was very good (he had suffered a hard time with injuries in recent seasons and hardly played for the reserves, although Xavi gave him five games with the first team at 22-23).

I remember after the game I took him and made him come to my office and press him, because I like it when you press or press a little bit, or demand from a player to see how he reacts. That season Gavi played in the youth team of Barça as a cadet. And this is a very important match, because it was the year of the transformation of Second B into First and Second RFEF, where there was a reduction and many teams were relegated.

It was the end of the season, the Espanyol B-Barça B derby, and that game was played by Gavi (he was 15 years old) on the Espanyol B pitch… It seemed like he had played the whole season for Barça B. The level of competitiveness was impressive. In this game you say: “Hey, this guy is ready”. Obviously, he will miss things, but this kid is ready to fight (Barça B won 0-1 thanks to Peque’s goal). The easiest thing would be to send him to Barça B, because he is very young and his time will come. But it’s time to bet.

And how did you compress it?

Speaking about football, he is under pressure to talk about football, nothing more. In football today I feel bad because I have a very good relationship with the agents, because in this scenario everyone has to do their job, but I think that often football is not talked about. I really regret what happened with Ilaix Moriba, I think I said it in an interview. Ilas had incredible potential and was a boy who at 17 years old played 12, 14, 15 starts for Barça in the first team and at a good level. We took the boy to talk to Ronald Koeman and Ronald said to him: “Next year you will have to play a lot of starts”. So when you see how things are set up and that people do not talk to children about football, they talk to them about other things and make them make mistakes… You need to talk to the players about football. When you do that, you will see how they react to you. And football is life, because football is a school of life. They give you a message of what they feel and live it. Then experience makes you see… When I was younger, sometimes I would give a speech or some message that you could convince them of, and then you would see that it was not translated onto the pitch, but you already know how to perceive. Yes, they actually tell you what they feel and how they experience football.

As with Pedri and Araujo, I’m not asking you to reveal the formula for Coca-Cola, but how do you recognize these players?

I have answered this question at different times. There is a difference between an unknown player and another who is not. Araujo: I have to say that he was at the table of several teams, because in sports management there is one thing: information; It is very important to work with information, to know what is happening. It is not like when I started, when they came with DVDs or sent by mail, you opened the package and started inserting the tapes. The situation has changed, the information comes very quickly; One tells you about a player, and a second later with the platforms you see him and analyze him. Araujo was visible to many people, and the information was with more people, not only Ramon Planes.

I heard that there was a centre-back in a very, very small team in Uruguay called Boston River, and I heard that there was a young player who was doing pre-season at Las Palmas and was very good. That’s the essence of what drives me as a sporting director: when you are convinced of something and you see that this potential has a different potential than the rest, you have to make decisions. And you have to be quick and brave, knowing that you can make mistakes, but you have to be brave. With both Pedri and Araujo, I saw different things. There were more people involved in the decisions, and it wasn’t just Ramon Planes, there are more people who control the players, who go to see them… but in both cases there was a short period of time to make a decision.

With Pedri we only had pre-season. Las Palmas were in Marbella for pre-season, where they played two friendlies and another in honor of Ruben Castro at Betis. And in three games there was a decision to be made, it was very clear to me because we couldn’t wait for La Liga to start. The reports were good, but ultimately the sporting director has to make the decision because when everything is going well, obviously everything is very good, but when everything is going badly, they also point it out to you, as many have pointed out to me, it didn’t work. And I accept them. We had to act quickly. When you see that a player is good… I know that today there is a lot of attention to big data and analysis, but when you find that a player is different from the rest, you don’t necessarily have to watch him for ten games. But hey, that’s the way to understand my job, and I think in that sense it was key to signing Araujo and Pedri.

Another player who bears your stamp is Abde, who was later signed by Betis.

I say this now, after a bad year, that at Betis things were not going well; He is a boy with great potential. When we signed him, I had just arrived at the second RFEF with Hercules. He had barely played 10, 12, 14 games. Sign him for Barcelona? Well, after seeing him live on pitches like Cornella or Llagostera, I said: “Oh, this guy is different.” And we had to gamble on him… Here I have to publicly thank Mateu Alemany, who was the director of football at the time. He told me: “Fuck, Ramon, are you sure?” You have to pay the clause, don’t mess with me” (Barça paid Hercules 2 million in 2021 and sold him in 2023 for 7.5 for 50%). And he gambled. Mateu absolutely believed in this courage, in this vision.

And are there any signs that you are being targeted by the press? That the name will be revealed and the operation will be disrupted?

I would say De Ligt for Barça. That was something we worked on. There comes a point where it is very difficult to hide. Just like the signing of De Jong was very good because De Jong was a Paris Saint-Germain man. Everything was done, but during a phone call with Eric Abidal, I remember very well, it was eight o’clock in the afternoon, with Eric and Pep Segura we were able to change everything. The next morning we went to Amsterdam to tell him: “Please don’t sign.” And we turned it around. But I remember that with De Ligt we had it very advanced, but it was impossible.