There are many legends of FC Barcelona that continue to remain invested in football despite their retirements. 41-year-old Javier Saviola is among such former stars of the club who now work in a completely new role as compared to his work a few seasons ago.
Formerly a Barcelona player and member of the Argentinian National team, Saviola would later go on to manage the Barcelona Youth A team as an assistant coach. Afterwards, Saviola would become a commentator for Barca’s UEFA Champions League games since last year, a role he continues to play today.
In a recent exclusive interview with Flashscore, Saviola revealed several of his opinions when questioned about him. Here are some of the most interesting questions asked by Flashscore:
You’re always linked to football, do you want to be a coach?
“When I finished playing in 2015 at River, I went to do the coaching course at the RFEF and I was waiting for an opportunity. The Barca thing was brilliant because I love training players, from 15 to 19 years old, with what it means to be in La Masia, with such a great philosophy and that so many great players have come out of there. The responsibility was huge to keep looking for new challenges with those players.”
Was there anyone special who stood out above the rest?
“We had the opportunity to have Lamine Yamal and three or four players who are now in the first team and coming through in professional football.”
Is it true what they say about Yamal?
“Yes, yes. He’s one of those players who are different, and who don’t come along very often. We were very surprised in every way by his maturity, his way of seeing football when he was 15 years old at the time. We already saw something special in him.”
Having played together with Lionel Messi for both club and country around the 2006/2007 season, Flashscore took the opportunity to ask Saviola what his own take was in regards to similarities between Messi and the latest 16-year-old prodigy of La Masia.
You were also Messi’s teammate when he was very young. Do you see similarities?
“It’s unlikely that anything similar to Leo will ever happen again, but we did see something similar with how everything was going. When I came to Barca when I was 19 I went to see him (Messi) in training and the same thing happens to you, seeing something that will surely be unmatched.”
“And with Lamine, the same thing happened to us. It’s something different, something we’re not used to seeing, with so much personality, exquisite dribbling, putting the team on his shoulders at 15 years old when there were teammates of 18 and 19, and we saw special things… Leo is one of the best players in history and Lamine, if he sets his mind to it, will be at a very, very high level.”
The full exclusive interview is currently available to read on the Flashscore website. They also discuss several other personal topics as well as the differences between his time at Barcelona and Real Madrid alongside several other interesting conversations with the former Argentine star.