“Get the most out of what you have. You don’t want to be someone you are not. The day you lose your identity, you lose everything, not in football but in life.”
Such sage words could have been taken from a book on motivational positive thinking, but they were spoken by Julián Calero, the coach of Burgos, unlikely leaders of the Segunda.
His comments on the simplicity of his methods went viral on Twitter on Tuesday night, following yet another impressive performance from Los Blanquinegros. They were in the Canary Islands taking on Las Palmas, who were top of the league and unbeaten at home until this match. Curro Sánchez gave Burgos the lead in the second half, but when Juan Artola was sent off, it seemed likely that they would have to suffer to hold on for a result. Instead of that, they scored another to seal the three points and went top of the league themselves.
Burgos, a town most famous for being the resting place of El Cid, were only promoted to Segunda in 2021 and finished in mid-table last season, already an overachievement. Their budget is among the smallest in the division, and the goal was to simply stay afloat in professional football.
With Spanish football cult hero Michu pulling strings behind the scenes, and the impressive Calero in charge, Burgos fans are beginning to dream. Calero has been in coaching for many years, holding various assistant or youth roles in the Spanish capital. He then joined Julen Lopetegui at Porto before later following him to the Spanish national team. He took over at Burgos in 2020 and took them straight up to Segunda.
Their incredible defensive record is what alerted most people to their project. Burgos started the season with ten consecutive clean sheets. Goalkeeper José Antonio Caro, or Churripi as he is known, smashed Claudio Bravo’s record of 775 minutes without conceding at the start of a season. In their 11th game, Caro was sent off, and Mirandés scored a 94th minute equaliser at El Plantío, but such was the character of this team that they went on to win the game in the 102nd.
Now back from suspension, Caro remains unbeaten, amassing 1,215 minutes without conceding, a run that stetches back to April. To put that in context, Real Madrid had just played their Champions League quarter-final first leg at Stamford Bridge on that date. Caro, the former Sevilla youth team ‘keeper, is just 61 minutes away from breaking the mythical record of Abel Resino which had seemed hitherto insurmountable.
Calero accepted that not everyone likes their defensive approach, but he had this response. “There are many ways to play football. I respect everyone, but you have to differentiate between playing beautifully and playing well”. He described four fundamental facets to the game: attack, defence, what you do when you lose the ball and what you do when you recover it.
Such simplicity might seem out of place in a world of tactics and micro-analysis, but with Calero’s humility and leadership, Burgos believe.