It's easier and easier to end a manager's contract"

After being sacked by Espanyol halfway through last season and after listening to offers for a few months, Sánchez Flores decided to go to Shanghai Shenhua in China.

In an interview with EFE, the coach of sides like Valencia, Atletico Madrid and Watford analyses the reasons for his decision and his first few weeks in China, where his club have not started the season well. 

Q: Shanghai Shenhua have not had a good start to the league with two losses in two games. How is the team psychologically?

A: We are still getting to know our team, our players, getting to know know how they compete not only how they train. We have to adapt ourselves to the Chinese league, to the changes which each game suggests. There are teams which we don't know, we a re still learning. 

Q: Time and patience are the key then?

A: It's patience, knowing that there is hardly any in football, and it's confidence in what one does because it has been done and tried and tested in many countries and it has worked well. If it worked well in those countries, it can work here as well. What's happening is that every new project needs a period of adaptation.

Q: How is your adaptation to Shanghai going?

A: It's going well because we already knew the team and the board, the squad has not surprised us. The club is helping us a lot and has put tools so that we can feel at ease.

Q: We have seen you training with a translator, how are you managing the language barrier?

A: The Achilles injury I had at the start of the season is concerning me more than the language. The fact I have to be stationary and not being able to move freely during training: this has caused me more frustration than the language.

Q:: How is China at the moment for a manager?

A: It depends on how you take the profession. For me my profession has been like a brand for a long time. I consider myself to be a brand and I want to launch my brand in new markets. I want to do well in China and have a market open for me if I decide to return. 

Q: In recent years, the Chinese president has taken very seriously the goal of turning football into a national sport...

A: Yes, it's a market which is growing, it's standing out, which signs very important players, where there are coaches with a good pedigree and I think it's a huge market which football needs to tap.

Q: A few weeks ago, you said in an interview that it would be a challenge for you to manage Real Madrid. Did you try and tempt Real Madrid?

A: This forms part of a headline inside a larger context. Now I have been managing for 16 years, I'm 54 and I can choose more or less the places I fancy going to. Going to Real Madrid is not a challenge. I know Real Madrid, I know the place, the people which are there. I am such affinity and knowledge of the place that I wouldn't really call it a challenge.,. If I got the job, it would be a privilege to be there and if not then it doesn't matter.

Q: Just a few days afterwards, Zidane announced his return after a few months of turmoil at Real Madrid. Is the coach such an important part of a team?

A: It´s very important although I still think that the players are more important. What I do think is that manager's nowadays have their hands tied more. He is becoming less and less important, it's getting easier and easier to end his contact, interfere because of a lack of confidence or maybe because those who run the club are not prepared to do so.

Q: There is a lot of pressure to get results quickly...

A: I think it's fear and a lack of knowledge. For them (those who run the club) there are only two options: either you win or lose. And everything a coach does takes a back seat.

Q: And in China are coaches respected?

A: Now they are starting to realise that the managers are very important because there is a lot to organise, a lot to plan and improve, and now they are giving a lot of importance to the manager. The players and coaches are worthless if they don't get results, but here now there's a dedication. They look to the manager so that he can plan and make clubs grow.