The driver of the Tusa bus went from Badalona to Barcelona and regional catalana to primera división, stopping everywhere in between. On Thursday night, Atlètic Lleida host Espanyol in the Copa del Rey first round. Lleida play in Spain’s semi-pro fourth tier, a world away from their opponents, who celebrated their 125th anniversary last Saturday by climbing into a Champions League place, but there will be something familiar about the man sitting on the visitors’ bench, if he ever actually sits. “I know Manolo because we’ve faced each other at our level,” Lleida’s coach, Gabri García says. “We come from the depths.”
Depths is right, but Manolo González wouldn’t change a thing, proud to have been in García’s place. A symbol of some day, he reached the top flight via the long route, having coached at every age group and every level in Spain, from the regional league to tercera, with its 397 teams across 18 groups; from Segunda B, still theoretically amateur and made up of four regional divisions with 80 teams, to segunda; and on to primera, no guarantee he would get there. Which is why it took years to give up the day job at the wheel of the interurbano to Barcelona.
