This coach was for a long time considered simply a good specialist, but almost the last chord in his career transferred him to the category of great ones. After all, it was he who turned the eternal favorite and the same eternal loser - the Spanish team - into a formidable and invincible force that conquered Europe first and then the rest of the world.
Carier start
Jose Luis Aragones Suarez was born July 28, 1938 in the capital of Spain, in the region of Ortales, which was considered a business district. Closer than to any Madrid club, from Ortales it was possible to get to the suburbs - Getafe, which became the first refuge of Luis Aragones in his club career. Less than a year of speaking for the club from Getafe, as he was noticed by the breeders of Real Madrid and invited him to his team. The transition took place in 1958, but the twenty-year-old footballer never played “creamy” as the basis. He constantly stayed on loan at other clubs, having traveled through a fairly large number of cities. In addition to taking the royal club, he played in Huelva, Alicante, and Oviedo. It was as an Oviedo player that he played the first match in the major league of Spanish football. After three years of wandering around on leases, Luis Aragones from 1961 finally steadily played for the Real Betis team from Seville, for which he spent three full seasons.
With Atlético as a player
In 1964, Luis Aragones found his team. She became the second metropolitan team - Atletico. It is with this club that the greatest successes of the Aragones player and the Aragones coach at the club level will be associated. In the history of “mattresses” (the nickname of the club “Atletico” (Madrid) is associated with the coloring of T-shirts in red and white stripes), this striker entered a good organizer and a great finisher of attacks. For 360 matches in the major Spanish league, he scored 161 goals.
As part of the "mattresses" he was a real leader. He led the team to three championships, two cups of the country. And once - in 1974 - the team stopped a step away from winning the European Cup. Almost the entire final match, the Madrid team beat Munich Bayern 1-0 by the goal of Aragones. But the goalkeeper’s mistake in the end of the match led to a draw. There was no extra time then, and in the replay the Germans did not leave stone on stone from Atlético, beating the opponent 4-0. During the game in Atlético, Luis Aragones also won an individual award - the prize for the best scorer of the Spanish championship, although he shared it with two competitors. For excellent performance standards, he received from the fans the nickname Zapatones, which literally translates as “big boots”.
Spain national team game
Some believe that Luis Aragones in his youth was underestimated by the breeders of Real Madrid. After all, it was very difficult for a young guy to compete with such pillars of the attack of the best European team of that time, like Alfredo di Stefano or Ferenc Puskas. But the strength of the player Luis Aragones can be judged by the fact that he was called up to the national team for seven years only for eleven matches, in which he scored three goals.
Moreover, these challenges began a year after the first European triumph of the Spanish team. The first match took place in 1965, and the last in 1972. In fairness, it should be noted that not a single match of the national team with the participation of Luis Aragones defeated - the Spaniards won seven victories, and four matches were drawn.
The beginning of the coaching path
The season of 1974/75, Luis Aragones began as a player in the "mattress". But after playing several matches at the beginning of the season, he decided to end his active career as a player in his thirty-seventh year of life. From the tenth round of the specified season, a new football coach has appeared in the Atletico Madrid team.
In the first season, Madrid managed to win the Intercontinental Cup, in which Bayern refused to participate. At the end of the second season, Luis Aragones, the coach, led the team to triumph in the Spanish Cup. And a year later - in 1977 - Atletico (Madrid) became the champion of Spain. This, perhaps, was the peak of the career of a then-young coach at the club level. A year later, Luis Aragones stopped coaching the club, he was asked to return, but due to unsatisfactory results, he left Madrid before the end of the 1979/80 season.
Club leapfrog
In 1981, Luis Aragones surfaced at his first permanent club - Seville's Real Betis - as a player. But after playing and losing the first match, he was forced to leave this team. The following year, he returns to Madrid as an Atlético coach. This time, in less than five years, the team wins the Spanish Cup and Super Bowl and reaches the final of the Cup Winners' Cup. There were no subsequent victories, and Luis Aragones left the club of Madrid at the end of the contract in order to work with Barcelona. In the debut season, the Catalan team wins the Spanish Cup, but does not become a champion and the coach is forced to leave this club. After a year of inactivity, Luis Aragones, a football coach, accepts another Barcelona club - Espanyol, but works with him almost to no avail.
A year later - in the 1991/92 season - he returned to the leadership of the "mattresses" for the third time and for the third time with them (the fourth in his career) he won the Spanish Cup as a coach. This trophy of Luis Aragones at the club level ends. Although he coached many teams - “Seville”, “Valencia”, “Real Betis”, “Real Oviedo”, “Mallorca”, “Atlético” (Madrid) - for the fourth time. To the credit of Luis Aragones, it should be noted that the last time he took the Madrid team in the second Spanish division and returned it to the elite in one year. The achievements of his coaching career over this period include the Mallorca bronze medals and the opening to the football community of such a star as Samuel Eto'O.
European triumph
The path of Luis Aragones to coaching in the national team began with criticism of the current coach at that time - Inaki Saesa. And after another failure of the Spanish national team at the European Championships in 2004, he accepted the invitation of the local federation to lead the country's main team. By that time, Luis Aragones had already received the nickname “Sage from Ortales” when he was his coach, “Atletico” (Madrid). The first match as a coach turned out to be victorious, but this victory 3: 2 was hardly given to stronger Spaniards over the modest Venezuelan team. Approaching the 2006 World Cup without a single defeat under the leadership of a sage from Ortales, the Spanish national team was once again considered one of the favorites. And she lost again. The first match “on the fly” brought defeat 1: 3 from the French team. Aragonés was about to leave the national team, but the Spanish Football Federation decided to extend the contract with this outstanding specialist until the end of the next European Championship in 2008 . After that, Luis Aragones took up the matter with renewed vigor, betting on new - young players, getting rid of the long-standing "idols" of Spanish fans.
For which he received a lot of criticism from both Spanish and many foreign experts. But, as time has shown, the sage from Ortales was right, and the Spanish team returned in triumph from the
2008 European Championship .
After the most important victory
At the end of the European Championships, Luis Aragones decided not to renew the contract with the Spanish national team. In his place were invited Vicente del Bosque, who led the Spaniards to triumph at the 2010 World Cup and the next European Championship in 2012. But he took advantage of the foundation laid by his predecessor. And the European champion left Spain for the first time in his life in order to train the Turkish Fenerbahçe. This 2008/09 season was his last as a coach. After completing an active career, he was still awarded the “Grand Royal Cross” in 2002 for his achievements in sports and won the Legend trophy according to Spain’s most famous football newspaper. So said goodbye to big football, Luis Aragones.
He himself knew the cause of the death of this outstanding coach long before everything happened. Leukemia undermined the health of a sage from Ortales. He was sick for a long time and passed away on February 1, 2014. All matches after his death in Spain began with a moment of silence, during which more than one footballer who happened to play under the leadership of Luis Aragones, wept.