Pablo Alfaro was one of La Liga’s most iconic defenders at the beginning of the century. Known for his expeditious and hard style, Pablo played in the first division for 18 years, and that includes a short one-season stay at Cruyff’s Barça, right after winning the Champions League final in Wembley, “10 days after the party”, as he says in a recent interview with Flashscore.
Alfaro discusses Flick’s Barça, and it reminds him of Guardiola’s first years in the club, “I think Flick’s Barça is doing very well. I think it’s doing very well because I think it has certain similarities with Guardiola’s Barça when, in his first year as coach, he had a group with brutal talent, because there were six or seven tremendously talented players, and then there’s the hunger that group had. The hunger of Pedrito, Busquets, Valdés, Piqué, all that hunger of those kids who were coming up then, who had little experience, well, now compare them with Cubarsí, Lamine, Fermín, or Pedri, I tell you, I see many similarities. And that mix right now of veterans, good veterans, and young players who want to take on the world, well, it’s a great team, and it’s normal and logical that if they’re well managed, they’ll get even better. “.
About his days at the club, Alfaro remembers, “when I arrived at Barça, newly crowned European Cup winners, there was that famous Dream Team, with Stoichkov, Laudrup, Zubizarreta, Beguiristáin, Bakero, Guardiola, etc. They were all very good. It was a joy to watch them play, and sometimes I had to train until I suffered, trying to assimilate all the concepts that my teammates already had”.
The former player remembers working with Cruyff very fondly, “I was fortunate to be part of the Dream Team and learn a lot, and I had the privilege of being with Johan Cruyff , may he rest in peace”, as he continues “Johan wasn’t an inventor of anything. He brought with him the concept and style of football from Rinus Michels, which was practiced in the Netherlands, that total football. What he does have is the great courage and the character to be able to implement that style of play at a club like FC Barcelona, when no one else in Spain played like that, absolutely no one. So, he had that courage. At first, it was difficult for him, because of course, to play like that, none of the players Barça had, at first, understood what he had to do. But, little by little, he forged that team.”
