Carlos Corburn (Chestie, 1983) is one of the familiar technicians in the silver tier of English football. After jostling for promotion with Huddersfield in the 2021-22 season (they lost the final 0-1 against Nottingham Forest), he reached West Bromwich Albion in Round 17 with the penultimate team with 14 points and Today, Baghi is in ninth place, just five points short of the play-off Recorded by Millwall and Blackburn Rovers. Corburn analyzes the good role of Spanish coaches in the premiership and their time in foreign tournaments such as Saudi Arabia
What do you think is key for the team to give the impact it made in the rankings after you arrived?
There are still eight days left and I’m someone who does end-of-season assessments. We’ve obviously been able to reverse that very negative team dynamic. I understood that the club has a much better team than what was stated in the rating, and as a coach my goal was to achieve the best commitment from the players and try to change the dynamics from the sporting performance.
She renewed with the Baggies until 2027. Do you believe in an ambitious West Brom project that hasn’t been in the Premier since 2018?
When I arrived at the club, one of the goals was to achieve stability on the bench that hadn’t been there for years. Football always has a result-oriented part that we can’t ignore, but for me, it’s an honor to have the club’s confidence so they can get back into the Premier League, which is the category in which this great club deserves to be. .
We have a long-term project with West Brom that we’re very excited about.
I was about to rise with Huddersfield to the premiership last year. How was that final at Wembley for you to get promoted?
At the party level, it is one of the most important because of its repercussions and importance. The future of the club changes drastically if promotion is achieved or not and ultimately as a coach the goal is to focus on what we can control, which is none other than our style of play. On the level of performance I was very satisfied, but in terms of results it is true that we were excluded because of a special goal. I believe things happen in life because they have to happen and I try to learn as much as possible.
Carlos Corburn in his time at Huddersfield Town
Huddersfield and West Bromwich are small towns (just under 200,000 inhabitants) but feel very much like their peers. Do you think the fans are the key to such a good performance?
The support of the social masses is very important. The demands of the fans help coaches and coaches understand how the club operates. I think the social masses are precisely key in this, in supporting and demanding, because that is what motivates a footballer. All clubs in England have a very important social mass because here football is part of the life of the country.
At the Championship every week there are an average of 25,000 people in the stadiums and this support makes football in England live in a special way.
There are currently 7 Spanish coaches in the Premier League: Arteta, Lopetegui, Emery, Guardiola, Bruno Saltor, Ruben Seales and Javi Gracia.
The influence of the Spanish coaches is clearly impressive. The top two seeds, Arsenal and Manchester City, have two Spanish coaches (Arteta and Guardiola, respectively) working together by serendipity. We recently had the case of Unai Emery who took over the team when it was in the low 7th. Lopetegui took Wolves who were in the relegation zone and managed to reverse that situation, just like Javi Gracia, who also led the team through the relegation zone and is currently in a more favorable position.
Obviously what Guardiola did in England, establishing Manchester City as a champion team, and doing it in his own style has a lot of merit.
In regards to Mikel Arteta, he has Arsenal as the leader, being a very young team. What do you think of this arsenal?
I was at Leeds United when we met Arsenal in the Newcomers’ Cup match. He came up with a very clear idea of the game and expressed it to the players from the first minute. He is a coach who doesn’t leave things to chance and is focused on thinking about which players he needs in his style, regardless of their age. they. He unites a lot of style, player ability and coaching style and that’s what makes us coaches successful.
There is a tendency to dismiss the coach, 12 coaches in the Prime Minister, and 11 in Spain. Do you think that the World Cup in Qatar affected in any way the performance of players and clubs?
This year we obviously saw an atypical situation with the winter break. International breaks for coaches are always critical moments and layoffs often happen. The results-oriented dynamic of football makes us live the profession in a very intense way. Chelsea recently signed Graham Potter who has been doing well at Brighton and was sacked last week. It makes us see projects expire today in football, but it’s all part of our profession.
In today’s football, the coach usually does not have much time and needs immediate results that change the dynamics. It is a very demanding profession as we are evaluated every week on what we do in the field
In social networks, there is a tendency for users to be “little coaches”. Do you think that the virtual world makes some coaches change their decisions based on what public opinion demands?
With today’s social networks, everyone can participate and give their opinion on football. The feedback is bigger but in the end the coach tells the information the fans don’t have and knows in what conditions each player arrives and whether they should play or not. Our mission is to move away from a toxic environment like social networks and focus on analyzing our players to find the best formations for our team.
You are from Valencia. past in Valencia. How do you see the critical situation that the club is going through?
When you are professionally involved in a project, you see everything differently. The coach pays more attention to what happens on the field with the players and style than what happens on the extra athletic level. Obviously both the club and the city are impressive and football lives there in a very important way. Valencia have a lot of demanding fans who are very involved with their team and as a Valencian player I want the best for the club but my vision will always be focused on what happens on the field.
I trained in Arabia (Al-Nasr), Greece (Olympiacos) and Cyprus (Doxa and Ernis), how does football live in those countries?
Each environment has its own specificity. I had the opportunity to coach Olympiacos, a club with a long European tradition that makes me proud as part of that European experience. On the other hand, there are more unknown clubs like those in Saudi Arabia since international competitions are more about Asia than Europe. The arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo to victory made us know more about Saudi football. However, these clubs in Asia are very influential with a dominant tradition in Asian competitions. I know in Cyprus there are few European traditions and some footballers are seeking to continue their careers there.
You don’t realize how big Asian clubs are until you’ve been there. I went to the fields where 60,000 people were watching the game live.
Ultimately, Baggies CEO Ron Gourlay admitted he sees a young Mourinho on the team. What is your reference as a coach?
In terms of the Spanish coach, I really enjoyed seeing Marcelino at Valencia, Villarreal and Athletic. Obviously, Guardiola, with his style, has always fascinated me. I trained at Villarreal with a similar style of handling the ball and how to win with that particular style. Nagelsmann in Germany did an amazing job. Although De Cerbi is also an example for me because of what he does at Brighton and what he did at Shakhtar.
There are great coaches in Spanish football who belong to lower categories and who have not had the chance to reach the elite for various reasons.
