Quique Setién started the season at Real Oviedo, where the football ground is overlooked by a 30-metre Jesus Christ. He hadn’t come to coach and had no intention of going anywhere else to do so either. Everyone knows there are cows in his tiny hometown of Liencres, human population 3,537; what fewer know is that there is a club there too and as far as the former Barcelona boss was concerned, Marina Sport Under-19s were his team now, the only place he wanted to be. The professional game was best left to other people, one man in particular, so he had come along the north coast to watch one of the few sides that inspired him and support a friend.
It was August, the opening weekend. Eder Sarabia was making his “professional” debut aged 41 and 18 months into his own career. Until then, the son of Setién’s former teammate Manu Sarabia, 22 years younger than the head coach, had been Setién’s assistant at Las Palmas, Betis and Barcelona. Now, with the senior man stopping, he had set out alone at Andorra, who he brought up from the theoretically amateur, 40-team third tier for the first time. Almost a father figure, Setién followed his progress proudly. That day, he sat high in the west stand as Andorra began life in segunda with a 1-0 win. Some will call it luck, he said later, but he knew better.
