César Robledo has work to do, but wouldn't have it any other way. It's a bit before seven o'clock on Saturday evening and the big yellow bus he drives has just rolled into the Vall d'en Bas hotel in the Catalan countryside. His passengers, footballers for Union Deportiva Las Palmas, have got off, leaving him to clear up. The picnics, individually prepared in paper bags with squad numbers penciled on, have been polished off. A few beers have been too: Pio Pio, the club's own brew.
"I prefer to arrive and spend an hour, even two, tidying than go to my room," Robledo says. "Because that means they've won, and they're happy."
Happy? They're delighted, a party breaking out on board and rightly so: the passengers have just become the first team this season to beat Barcelona away, winning 2-1 at Montjuic. Vicente Gomez, the Las Palmas-born former midfielder who now works in the sporting directorate, is waiting for the players.
"You don't know what you've done," he tells them. What they've done is make history. This is their first win at Barcelona in 53 years. Bottom two months ago, it's also their fourth win in six. They've come a long way.
Quite literally.
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| Las Palmas are based in the Canary Islands and travel more than one thousand miles to play away games in Spain. Carlos Recio |
It is 1,350 miles from Las Palmas to Barcelona. The capital of Gran Canaria, an Atlantic island off Western Sahara, it is different to the rest of Spain: different climate, different character, different time zone. On the penultimate session before its football team fly off to face the league leaders on the mainland, it is over 30 degrees, a kalima mist of desert sand giving an orangey haze to the light. Standing pitchside at Barranco Seco, Luis Helguera, the sporting director, smiles. "This is the good part," he says.
The not so good part awaits. Inside, staff are already doing battle with it. History is made by many men and women, a truly collective effort.
Imagine Liverpool playing in Athens or Moscow. That's pretty much what Las Palmas have to do every other week, impacting everything: "your preparation, training hours, the intensity of work, recovery, your mood," says Diego Martinez, the coach who took over in October. "But we never highlight the negative; if you do, you feel even more tired."
"Before we join a club, we always carry out an analysis," says fitness coach Victor Lafuente. "One of the conclusions we reached was precisely this: that the travel, and the type of travel, conditions the way you work."
"Does it ever," adds Ivan Bennasar, the recovery specialist.
Together they have built a protocol, micro-stimuli inserted as a priority throughout a schedule that's squeezed tight, where there are many "disruptors." It takes in everything from biorhythms and metabolism to the central nervous system, cortisol levels, shifts in temperature and time itself. Travel is conceived of as a "pseudo training session," another stress factor impacting players' performances and well-being.
"You plan everything to the millimetre," Bennasar says.
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| César Robledo stands outside the bus which transports Las Palmas players in Spain to their away games. Sid Lowe |
Ruben Fontes knows. Las Palmas' delegate, the travel is his responsibility, and it is some responsibility, balancing footballing and financial needs, human needs, too. It is also some challenge: moving a football team is a mammoth operation and as he sits sketching out details, there are arrows and lists and numbers everywhere.
The mainland is three hours away. Charter planes fly from a base in Valencia, charge by the hour and can cost €50,000 per game, at least 19 times a year. A regular flight costs more like €7,000. So while players' condition is key, the conclusion is clear.
"We do fly charters sometimes," Fontes says. How many in a season? "As few as possible!" More often, there are a lot of tickets to buy, which isn't easy either, especially when the league fixes dates late, offices close early and fans book the same flights.
Fontes goes through the list. Twenty-three players, a third goalkeeper -- always taken in case, the doctor, two physios, sporting director, director of communications, club media, technical staff, nutritionist, director of security, president, vice-president, directors ... "And I always buy a few spares," he says. "Fifty seats, basically." Then there's the luggage: 750 kilos of it, all in.
Once everything's done, a document is sent to a WhatsApp group where only Fontes posts or it would be chaos: departures, arrivals, transfers, meetings, meals. "Don't forget your passport," it says. The flight for Barcelona -- VY3007 with Vueling -- leaves at 3:45 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 29. The return is after the game: flight VY3006. Las Palmas depart El Prat at 8:55 p.m., land in Gran Canaria at 11:20 p.m. and get back to Barranco Seco at 11:45 p.m., heading home from there.
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| Ruben Fontes is tasked with figuring out the logistics for travel, not only for players but also staff, coaches and others involved in the long trip. Carlos Recio |
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