C.Obtain the physical shape of Manel Estiarte and Pedro García Aguado, the players of the Spanish water polo team who starred in Barcelona 92 in one of the most remembered sporting feats in our country
Yes, it was not an easy task. Those men who are now brought to life by the actors Álvaro Cervantes and Jaime Lorente in the film 42 seconds they had trained at a superhuman level for the greatest dream of an athlete: to reach Olympic gold. After three extra time, the match against Italy ended in a 9-8 defeat. The bitterest silver. «The defeat hurt us a lot because we never thought about the possibility of losing. Our hearts ached,” Estiarte said. Half of Spain cried with them. But that defeat gave rise to a mythical generation of water polo players. Four years later they would get Olympic gold in Atlanta. And the World Championship. In the 1990s they played 90 percent of the finals. But they also paid a price.
“I couldn’t even imagine how tough this sport was. We spent five months training. We basically met in ‘turbopaquete’”, Lorente jokes to take the drama out of the matter while he poses with his looks swimming pool waiting for the premiere on September 2.
Of course there were moments for humor. Aguado has told many times how the other teams were angry that they beat them because they were always joking. But that legendary group went down in history because of other, more serious stories: the questionable techniques of their coach, the Croatian Dragan Matutinovic, drug addiction and that term that we have now finally begun to normalize: mental health. «The film narrates the deed of some men who find it difficult to embrace their emotions and share them. Elite athletes used to going all out without looking back. An apparent classic masculinity with a vulnerable interior”, explain its directors, Àlex Murrull and Dani de la Orden.
XLWeekly. Merciless training, psychological pressure, night parties that got out of hand… but also camaraderie and enthusiasm. Where do we start?
Alvaro: My conclusion after meeting Manel and Pedro personally is that what they experienced compensates them. A relationship of brotherhood was generated between them that they still maintain and that has infected us.
James: We ate with them to prepare ourselves and they only had good things. Although they also said that the coach had been a son of a bitch [se ríe]. If it is that when all that happened they were kids.
XL. Some even lost their toenails during those marathon races that took them up the mountain…
Alvaro: It’s true. He made them run, when they were made of water. They didn’t have the technique and he blew out their knees. What he did achieve, however, is to make them stronger mentally.
James: He was a tyrant.
Alvaro: He crushed them. But in the end you also have the question of whether she did it to unite them. If that suffering was something deliberate to push them to the limit and make them almost make a pineapple against him.
XL. What difficult anecdotes did they remember?
Alvaro: They told us that, during a match with the Hungarian national team, the coach told one of the players to hit an opponent with a host because, if not, he would be kicked out of the team. It seems that it was for him to lose his fear of that rival.
James: It is that water polo is a hyper-aggressive and very tricky sport. From the outside it doesn’t look like much.
«We have gone from not lasting two lengths to playing water polo matches; Well, the most we could last was three minutes, but hey…»
XL. Recreating a mythical team will have required equally mythical training…
Alvaro: Saving the distances and on a very small scale, we have experienced training as hard as the one they had. Before we started shooting, we were both injured. Me on the shoulder and Jaime on the knee.
James: It’s been a beating five months, but we’re very proud that in the end there were no doubles needed in any scene.
Alvaro: We have gone from not lasting two lengths to playing water polo matches. The maximum we could play was three minutes, yes, but hey… [se ríe].
XL. And have you wanted to get back into a pool?
James: Not at all. If it is also that I am not aquatic at all. I can’t stand the beach. I am more of a beach bar or mountain [se ríe]. But look how it was that at first we came together and thought we’d all join a water polo team when the shoot was over.
XL. What the high does…
Alvaro: We thought, “It can’t be that hard. If we are training every day for eight hours in the water, why don’t we make a team, meet every Thursday and then go to dinner?
James: When we told Manel and Pedro that we wanted to continue playing water polo after the shoot, they laughed at us. They said “yes, yes, you’ll tell us about it.” And it hasn’t happened, of course [se ríe].
XL. Does being the best always have to entail suffering?
James. In our profession, not because one cannot live this job as a competition, but in elite sport, yes, because that is pure and hard competition. You have to be above the other.
Alvaro: And that is where the head comes in, because sport is above all mental. You have to train your head to allow you to get where you want. Because, if you say no, there is nothing to do.
XL. It must not have been easy to get past that stage. Pedro ended up in a detox center…
James: Yes, but Pedro’s story goes beyond sports and it leads me to wonder what pillars he lacked in life to get there. In the film you see a little bit, it talks about the damage he suffers and what makes him seek that refuge.
“It was a beating, but we are proud that doubles were not needed in any scene”
XL. Also in your world is it easy to end up on the dark side?
James: Of course.
Alvaro: Because here there is also a lot of fragility. With the world of sport we share things like exposure, uncertainty, instability…
James: And it’s easy to want to find an escape valve from the pressure cooker, to want to escape.
Alvaro: That’s why it’s so important to take care of yourself mentally. Therapy is essential.
James: That is the training that you can never fail.
XL. Fortunately it is beginning to stop being a taboo subject.
James: Yes, but there is still a lot of complex.
Alvaro: And a lot of prejudice. Because in the end it is a disease that is not seen at first sight.
James: And when you say you’re going to therapy they immediately ask you: “But how is it possible? With the life you have! If you’re fucking good at it!”
XL. Have you lived it?
James: Sure, and you feel obliged to pretend that nothing is happening. I break my arm and walk calmly with my cast down the street, but if I’m sick, I don’t feel calm and free to tell it.
XL. Álvaro, have you also gone through that?
Alvaro: Yes, and you have to ask for help. I did therapy at the time. It was during the filming of the series Charles, King Emperor. I felt a lot of pressure, a lot of exhaustion, I felt very fragile. And there was a moment when I realized that I needed to order and manage emotions. In relation to work and my life. So I did therapy for a few years. Now I don’t do it anymore, but I have a series of resources that I got from there.
James: The problem is that it is not normalized and, when you ask for help, that is when there is no other choice. But look at the inconsistency: if we take the car to the ITV even if it is not broken, how is it possible that we do not do it with our own mental health? It is very important to build your toolbox to know which one you should use at all times. Just the interest in getting to know you and knowing why you use certain patterns of behavior can already prevent many things.
XL. Well, it’s very good that you tell it because many people will see themselves reflected in you.
James: And if it can be of any use, I am delighted. I also believe that the base work should be done at home and at school. That is, when you are little, it should be a subject that can be discussed in class. There is nothing more fluffy than a child. Many times I think: “Damn, if they had explained it to me before, surely I would see things differently.”
XL. You have just been a father. Are you going to talk about all this with your daughter?
James: The only thing that worries me as a father is that my daughter grows up in a safe space to be who she wants to be. Fortunately, in my house I have been an open book, with my father and with my mother, and I will be with my daughter and I will try that she is also with me.
Alvaro: And learn to express emotions, which I think the movie also says a lot about. Despite being very masculine a priori, there is a part of their journey that consists of healing wounds by sharing what they feel.
XL. For them it was that 92 final, but for you, what have been the most important 42 seconds of your life?
James: The birth of my daughter.
XL. How easy, he hasn’t had much to think about.
James: Easy? Ask my wife.
XL. Well, I know something about that…
Alvaro: Wow, impossible to compete with you! [Se ríe].
MANEL ESTIARTE
OF THE SUICIDE OF HIS SISTER AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GUARDIOLA
They called him ‘the Maradona of the water’ and he is one of the best Spanish athletes in history. Six Olympic Games, Prince of Asturias Award and endless titles. Manel Estiarte suffered in 1985 one of the worst tragedies that can be experienced: he saw her sister, the swimmer Rosa Estiarte, commit suicide, who jumped out of a window of the apartment where they lived after an argument with the father of she. «She fell before my eyes. I will never forget Rosa’s gaze fixed on mine». Estiarte described it for the first time in 2009 in the book All my brothers, after his father died. For 20 years, the subject was not discussed in his house. He says that for a while he went crazy and became even more involved in sports, but he confesses that he was selfish. «He was the best player, the one who scored the most goals, but I lacked excellence: altruism. Inside the water he was an animal ». Curiously, Estiarte says that the arrival of the Croatian coach Dragan Matutinovic helped him overcome that, “because of how much he made us all suffer. Then I started playing more for the team and I noticed that the others thanked me. For years he has ‘played’ in Pep Guardiola’s team: in addition to being friends, they are close collaborators. Today he is his assistant at Manchester City.
PEDRO GARCIA AGUADO
FROM DRUGS TO ‘BIG BROTHER’
For many, García Aguado is the ‘big brother’ because of the program he led from 2009 to 2015, but before that he was one of the best water polo players in the world. This did not prevent him from consuming all kinds of drugs while he was competing at the highest level. It was a playful consumption in leisure time, from alcohol to cocaine, going through all the variants, and he did not ask for help until a long time later, when he “no longer had anywhere to hold me; when I saw myself without a job, without money, separated for the second time with two daughters from different mothers, drowning in debt, threatened by a drug dealer who claimed to be my friend… », he recounted in his book Tomorrow I’ll Leave. But Aguado got over it and since then he has used his own experience to help young people who face similar situations, in addition to having carved out a career as a presenter and studying Psychology. The one who did not overcome it was his teammate Jesús Rollán, the popular goalkeeper of the national team, who despite trying to rehabilitate himself, failed to overcome his depression. He took his own life in 2006 at the age of 37.
Álvaro Cervantes and Jaime Lorente: «It is easy to fall to the dark side» | XLSweekly