NewsXavi Valero interview: 'It's amazing to be back - I have a special bond with Liverpool'
Returning to Liverpool after 15 years away has felt like coming home for Xavi Valero.
Valero’s love for both club and city was kindled between 2007 and 2010, when he was the Reds’ goalkeeper coach during the Rafael Benitez era.
The Spaniard’s affection for Liverpool remained strong across spells within Benitez’s staff at Internazionale, Chelsea, Napoli and Real Madrid, as well as a seven-year stay at West Ham United.
It was, then, an easy decision for Valero to come back to Anfield this summer, in the position of head of first-team goalkeeper coaching.
“It’s amazing to be back,” he told Liverpoolfc.com, at the team hotel during the Hong Kong leg of the Reds’ pre-season tour.
“Joining Liverpool is something that I think you are lucky to do once in your lifetime and to me it happened twice. So, it’s a double reason to be happy for me because I had fantastic years here in the past in my three seasons from 2007 until 2010.
“I always thought it was the most special experience I had as a coach and then I’ve been lucky enough to join again in a different moment of the club, but it still has the same essence and passion.
“It was special then and now it is again. I also have a personal bond with the city because I met my wife in Liverpool and my eldest daughter was born there so my happiest memories are in Liverpool, on both a personal and professional level.
“I have a special bond with the city and the club.”
After seven years at West Ham, Valero felt the time was right for a change and had no hesitation when rejoining Liverpool was presented as an option.
“There were a couple of things lined up but then Liverpool called and I’ll say it again: I was lucky to be called 18 years ago and now I am lucky to again be called by Liverpool. I just said ‘yes’, there wasn’t much to think about!” the 52-year-old said.
“When Liverpool calls you, you just have to say yes. It’s one of those clubs. There are a few of them in the world that when they call you, you have to say yes, and Liverpool is one of them.”
As head of first-team goalkeeper coaching, Valero heads up a new-look department at the AXA Training Centre, with Colin Stewart having also arrived this summer as goalkeeper development and pathway lead.
Valero detailed: “My job is not that different to the ones I have done before. I have had different roles in the past but I have always been on the grass and I have always been first-team goalkeeping coach in all the teams I have been with over the years.
“I don’t know if I’m a ‘better’ coach now than the first time I was here but football evolves and we, as coaches, have to evolve also. I feel I have more experience, I have seen more, I have been lucky enough to work in big clubs in all these years, but I would say that I just evolve with the times and football has moved on.
“The role of the goalkeeper has moved on and keeps doing so, it’s constantly evolving and becoming more complicated for goalkeepers to tick all the boxes during the game. As a coach, you need to support a goalkeeper in all those areas of the game.
“Now at Liverpool I am head of first-team goalkeeping, which means basically that anything related to first-team business around the goalkeepers is under my umbrella.
“But the thing is that Liverpool is a big club and there are a few goalkeepers on the books. Some of them are on loan and then you have talented goalkeepers in the Academy.
“We have Mark Morris, who has been with the club a long time, with the U21s, and then Colin is going to be my assistant but he is mainly going to be a transition goalkeeping coach who is looking after the goalkeepers we have on loan, so Vit [Vitezslav Jaros] at Ajax and Harvey [Davies] at Crawley Town, plus being in constant touch and establishing the communication with Mark.
“Obviously the first-team schedule is so hectic with so many games, so my focus has to be on the first team and Colin’s focus is going to be on the transition goalkeepers and the goalkeepers that we have on loan.”
Valero is, of course, working closely with Alisson Becker and Giorgi Mamardashvili and he explained that coaching ’keepers of their calibre is both rewarding and challenging.
“Alisson is the best goalkeeper in the world and he has been at that level for years so for all of us here it’s our job, our responsibility, to keep the standards really high,” he noted.
“From my side, it’s my responsibility to keep the standards high in the goalkeeping position and we are lucky as a club to have the best goalkeeper in the world with us.
“So, that’s a responsibility but I have been lucky enough to be exposed to these kind of challenges in the past and the target this season is to keep the high standards that have been set by the club for many years.
“And then in Gio we have a goalkeeper who is a younger goalkeeper with huge potential. He is the best young goalkeeper in Europe and I think he’s already showing that he has got what you need to have to be a top goalkeeper in the coming years.
“He’s been very solid and he keeps growing, and he showed that in La Liga with Valencia for all those years. I would say that he is the best goalkeeper of his age.
“I think we are lucky in the club to have the best goalkeeper in the world and the one that is the best of his age. We have a very strong set-up with these two goalkeepers.
“Coaching them is a privilege that comes with a responsibility but I feel lucky to be able to work with these goalkeepers on a daily basis and to be able to support them and to keep the standards high. I have to be able to have the answers to their questions, but that is part of my job.
“Everyone in the club, from the manager to anyone working in the club, the standards are really high and we feel that every day.
“From my side it’s the same and I’m quite convinced that we are going to be able to have a successful season and still keep the high standards that the club has set for us.”
Personal, as well as professional, bonds often form within successful goalkeeping units.
And, while it is early days in this group’s journey together, Valero senses that positive relationships are blossoming.
He stated: “I think that is key but I think you cannot force these things, they have to happen naturally.
“I think it’s important for the goalkeepers to work and to keep improving and to maintain what they have and to add things to their game, and for that you need to work hard and to keep your focus always on.
“But I think that everything becomes easier and better if this process comes from a relationship of trust and a personal bond that you can trust and the goalkeeper can trust what you are trying to offer to him and there is an honest exchange of views.
“So that has to happen and I think it’s happening, and I think we have a very nice goalkeeping group on the human side, with also Freddie Woodman and with Armin [Pecsi] and Kornel [Misciur], who are with us in Asia too.
“It’s been exceptional, the way they have started to interact, and I think it’s better for everyone if it’s this way. But again, these things, as with anything in life, you can’t force it. They just need to happen – and I think it is happening.”
Since returning, Valero has realised that the club has also evolved since 2010. However, he still recognises and feels the Liverpool he fell in love with in its modern-day guise.
“The club is much bigger, it has grown a lot since I left, but again, there is still that same essence, the same passion and the same targets: high standards, fighting for everything at one of the biggest clubs in the world,” he concluded.
“It always felt like coming back home every time I came back with a different club and Anfield felt like coming back home when I was with the opposition. Now I can be again on the home bench, which is a privilege for me.
“It has been very easy to settle here again. There are new people, although people come and go and the club remains the same.
“But it’s been good to see at the training ground that many, many different people in different departments are still there from my first time here. It’s a nice feeling and it feels like home again.”