Thread by @BarcaFem

🗣 ARA | Markel Zubizarreta: "I'm a father and I think, I want my daughter to learn from these players"

Q: Do you remember what you experienced in Gothenburg as if it were a dream?

Markel: "The context of the final was so strange. First we are locked in the hotel for 3 days, then the final arrives and you see that everything is very distant: interviews, visits from relatives"[1/2]

Markel: "Everything is done by phone or thematic route. There’s a point of not being able to celebrate it together that makes us not quite believe it yet." [2/2]

Q: Did not being able to celebrate with the fans make the title bittersweet?

Markel: "Of course. In the context in which we are right now, we all take home the situations of the pandemic. Those who have children cannot do so many things with them" [1/3/

Markel: "Those who want to go to dinner or lunch outside can’t do it either, you have to see the relatives for as little time as possible. In the end, a lot of people have had to make a lot of sacrifices during this season in order to get it. " [2/3]

Markel : "The fact of not being able to collectivize this joy .... is not what we would have liked. But we are still European champions and we will look for a way to do it. We have the medal, which is the most important." [3/3]

Q: And this is very different from two years ago. Now it’s gold, in Budapest it was silver.

Markel: "It's a bit of poetic justice. We turned the tortilla! In Budapest we were out of the game in the first half hour. Two years later, half an hour later, we were almost done." [1/2]

Markel: "It's a very shocking thing and the situation changed so much in two years says a lot about how ready the team was to appear in the final." [2/2]

Q: How did you see the players in the hours before the final?

Markel: "During the trip, in training or when you came across them, you saw that the team was mature. We were no longer going to play a Champions League final, we were going to win it. " [1/2]

Markel: "The parties decide them in detail, but the security you go with is the job done. And we’ve been doing this all season. We arrived with all the security and incentives to be able to win it, and so it was." [2/2]

Q: Even though the match was sentenced from the 13th minute, how did you experience the moment the referee whistled?

Markel: "The feeling was that everything we had been doing for a long time suddenly made sense. " [1/3]

Markel: " In the end it is the work of many people who have worked very well for a long time. We are reaping the benefits of when the club opted for the women's team, of when Xavi Llorens was the coach and began to put order in the section" [2/3]

Markel: "Remember all the people we’ve traveled with and people who were there before. If it weren't for all these people, we wouldn't be European champions right now." [3/3]

Q: When does the project start? How is it posed?

Markel: "When I arrived I didn't have the functions I have now and the first thing I do is talk to Xavi Llorens, who had been my coach the two weeks I was at Barça [laughs]. " [1/2]

Markel: "What I am imbued with is a clear idea: "We cannot stop being ourselves." This involves following the club’s style in terms of training and play and in the end winning was not the purpose but the consequence of the work done. That was sacred." [2/2]

Q: Is your goal to be European champions?

Markel: "We wanted to end up being a reference and fight to be champions. In the world of elite sports you can never secure titles, but yes if you do the job you can be competing with the best. " [1/2]

Markel: "From there, you have to be lucky to win. It seems to be the perfect story. Six years ago the team was professionalized with the aim of being in the finals and competing. We were in two and took one and the way we wanted. It’s important how we did it." [2/2]

Q: After losing in the final in Budapest, do you think that the project is in danger?

Markel: "The whole club was aware that we were reaching the final in Budapest too soon. No one thought we were one of the two best teams in Europe." [1/3]

Markel: " It was a way of measuring ourselves in that context. In the end, that season was blank and we reached the final, but we didn’t win any titles, and so we saved the season. It was the moment when everyone wondered, " [2/3]

Markel: ""What do we need to become European champions?" Both from a sporting and club level point of view. It was a time when the club, instead of looking the other way, did a reset to get out of the comfort zone. " [3/3]

Q: After the Budapest final, the team and staff made a key chip change.

Markel: "Exactly. I remember the dinner after the Budapest final. It was the end of the season and in those parliaments these ideas had already emerged." [1/2]

Markel: " Both in the president's, in mine, in Lluís's and in the captains'. The next day, the plane to return crashed and we had a long time. That airport gave for a lot . I already met there with Lluís and we laid the foundations for what we wanted to do for the future." [2/2]

Q: Communion among all was absolute.

Markel: "These things happen because everyone believes in them. If the players had said they wanted to change things, but the coach didn’t see it or I, as sporting director, would have thought they were wrong, we wouldn’t be here. " [1/2]

Markel: "Everyone believed in it and we redirected what we were doing. It was a very simple thing and at the same time very difficult: to train more and do it better. It all came down to that." [2/2]

Q: There are two key people in this process. The first is Xavi Llorens.

Markel: "Totally. Right after the final I talked to him about it. Not that what we are doing now is easy, but what he did at the time was very complicated. " [1/3]

Markel: "The structure of all this is the work that Xavi did taking on a team that, even in the first year, was relegated to the Second Division. From there he went on to consolidate it as one of the leading teams in Spain. " [2/3]

Markel: "Xavi's last year we reached the Champions League semifinals. This already tells you a lot about the journey that all this entails." [3/3]

Q: In 2019, you bet on Lluís Cortés.

Markel: "Lluís and I turned everything we were doing upside down. In the first conversation I had with him we talked about finding the best version of each player." [1/2]

Markel: " He has achieved this and taken it to a very high level. We are now a team that plays very well, without differentiating between male or female. We have a style closely linked to what it means to be in this club and Lluís is the key person who transmits all this." [2/2]

Q: Is Barça the team where Barça's DNA is most recognizable?

Markel: "The coach is the one who has to convince the players of what we do. What we have always sought is to be ourselves, it is the key to everything. " [1/2]

Markel: "From there, we believed the results would come and they did. This happens in the first team, but also with the fry. It is a philosophy that we have very clear: focus on being ourselves and forget about the result." [2/2]

Q: Is this one of the biggest claims when it comes to signing European stars like Graham or Lieke?

Markel" For example, in the summer of 2017, when we signed Martens, there was an important part that was the style of play. " [1/4]

Markel: "This style could be attractive because they had reached the Champions League semi-finals, but I think at that time the fact that we were Barça and what that meant also weighed more heavily." [2/4]

Markel: " Today we are a team in which what attracts the players is the women's Barça, not the FC Barcelona. For ourselves we are already a claim for many players who want to come." [3/4]

Markel: "Men's football is more developed in many terms, but I do think that our style of play - in the context of women's football - is very different from anything that can be seen with the rest of the great European teams." [4/4]

Q: Has this Champions been the end or the beginning of the road?

Markel: "I think it's one more point. It was the goal at the time and now we have new ones. The hardest thing is not to get there, but to maintain that level in the following seasons. " [1/2]

Markel: "More and more clubs are betting on it and now there are 7-8 possible European champions. We have to stay. It’s a new perspective, but we continue to work in the same direction." [2/2]

Q: After lifting the Champions League do you think it will also help create new benchmarks for future generations?

Markel: "The fact of having references in the context of women's football is very important. " [1/4]

Markel: " The luck we have is that they are benchmarks in every way. You see them in interviews or on a day-to-day basis and, oysters, I am a father and I have a daughter and I say, "I want my daughter to learn from these girls." " [2/4]

Markel: "They have it all. His path in the world of football has been very complicated. We are a benchmark in the context of women’s sport, but I think we are starting to be a benchmark for sport in general. " [3/4]

Markel: "This team has made history. We are a reference project at European and global level. I, when I got to the team, wasn’t doing a women’s soccer project, I was doing a soccer project, and that’s it." [4/4]

Q: The clear example is Melanie. She went from playing in the Second Division to lifting the UWCL.

Markel:" Of course you don't have to tell Mel anything. I have no doubt that in a few years she will be within the structure of the club with the roles that each can play." [1/2]

Markel: "They have lived it, changed many things and continue to do so. The future of women's Barça depends on them becoming very important people within the club in a few years." [2/2]