The Club’s Sporting Director, Manolo Gaspar accompanied Guede to the press conference, “to welcome him home. Thank you for your willingness and enthusiasm. He will know how to convey that winning character to everyone,” he said.
“Málaga means so much to me. This is the most important challenge of my career,” commented Pablo, who described the first training session as “brilliant.” On a personal level, he said “everything is wonderful. Being able to set foot in La Rosaleda and see the changes for the better since the years I was there... I feel great satisfaction and joy. The city is as spectacular as always. At the moment everything’s good,” Guede added.
The Spanish-Argentinean coach believes that “you need to talk a little and work a lot in numerous aspects of play in order to turn the results around.” A self-confessed Malaguista, he talks about his arrival: “Your feelings often take over. If Málaga needs me at this time, I can’t say no. When your beloved Club knocks at the door, you drop everything.”
In regard to his footballing plan: “The Málaga I want to see? Running, goals and always moving forward. Running and scoring is non-negotiable every time you wear this jersey. Once the team takes on board what I want from them, then it depends, as not all rivals are the same, nor do they all require the same thing. I like attacking football, organised pressure, recovery and possession,” he added.
Manolo also intervened to highlight that Pablo Guede “is what the team needs as he’s a natural leader. Opportunities come about and we believe this is the solution”. The coach continued to transmit positivity: “I have no negatives. We started out with the level of intensity that I like, brilliant. I'm leaving feeling like, hey, this team is far from dead in the water. This team wants it.”
Guede always sees the glass half full: “We’re three points away from Sporting. There are four teams that would like to be in our position. We have a squad here that can look at the teams above us. It depends on how you want to see the glass. I prefer looking at it as half full. We need to focus on ourselves and take our matches forward. We know very well the more united we all are, the easier things will be.”
“Defending and attacking is about the team. I’m convinced the team goes above the individuals. I understand when it’s been said that Málaga aren’t scoring, we need to work on that, but we must also focus on the defence. We need to adjust those details that can determine whether you win or lose, I think we can do it,” Guede added, who went on to talk about the Malaguistas. “What can I say about the Málaga fans? We need to fill La Rosaleda and ensure the fans always support us, as they always do in the tough times. We’re going to be what we always are. More Malaguista than ever before. We’re all in this together, the Club, fans, media, players…Yes, we’re going through a hard time, but we need to stick together more than ever. That’s the most important thing. I’d love to see 28,000 Malaguistas on Saturday.”
Pablo wanted to “thank everyone for making this dream possible.” He also made reference to his time at Juval and El Palo where he started out as coach, and gave a special mention to Juan Godoy, the president of El Palo FC, who recently passed away.
Finally, he compared the Club's situation with him as a player during the 97/98 season, to the current one. “That was more difficult, it didn't depend on us. Now this is entirely up to us, as a team,” he concluded.
