Interview with Omar Alexis Moreno
At 33-years-old, Omar Alexis Moreno Galindo is already one of the more enterprising young coaches in Mexican football as his three-year stint at Mineros de Zacatecas was impressive, constantly qualifying for Liga MX Expansion playoffs while also ranking high in expected goals while playing an expansive style of football. Mineros de Zacatecas are one of the more intriguing footballing projects in Mexico as the young Head Coach who has become a friend of the website, gives us an insight into his playing style, methods of player development as well as his background.
Under his tutelage, Diego Campillo has grown into one of the more adventurous young centre-backs in Mexican football as Mr. Moreno gives us an insight into this. He gives us an insight into his playing style at Mineros as well as the nuances of his week-to-week coaching philosophy as Mineros were one of the few Mexican clubs to move players into European football in the last few transfer windows, as Juan Calero moved to Portugal from the Liga MX Expansion club.
You went to Barcelona to study on a footballing course? Could you explain more about this?
It was a decision I made, after having worked for more than 5 seasons as a technical assistant. I felt that I had to know different things and that I had to grow conceptually. Going to a city like Barcelona with all its tactical culture was the best thing that could happen to me at that moment in my career. It was always clear to me that my next step in football was to be the first coach, but I needed new knowledge to take that step.
What did you learn on the course and how did it shape your views on football?
It was a very important training in several aspects. Firstly in the personal aspect, being in a city of this type and having to develop yourself was something that was undoubtedly going to translate into growth and evolution. Of course, in terms of learning soccer every day my eyes opened more. Tactically I took a leap, in terms of collective analysis, by lines and individually as well. But I think that what I'm left with mainly is the feedback I've received regarding how to perform on the pitch, in a training session or in a game. Those are things that I learned along the way before but that I managed much better after this course in Barcelona.
Jimmy Lozano went on the same course, you have a respect for him. How did he shape your beliefs on football?
I respect and admire Jaime Lozano a lot, he is undoubtedly the great bulwark of the new generation of coaches in Mexican soccer. In fact, I had the chance to have a video call with him during the course. I greatly admire the values that Jaime transmits and having been able to talk with him was an experience that motivated me a lot. When I was in Europe, I understood that the most important thing for a coach is to have clear ideas and defend them with work and conviction. Knowing the culture of Catalan football influenced me but it also helped me to contrast some personal ideas and make them stronger.
Your team operates with a back-three, how did you decide that this was the best system for you at Mineros de Zacatecas?
It is likely that I identify more with this structure of 3 central defenders, however, if you review all the games that I was in Zacatecas, you will realize that we used more than 8 different tactical formations. With this, what I want to say is that I am not a slave to the line of 4 or the line of 3, of 1 forward or of 2 or of 3... I really enjoy being able to see that my team can adapt positionally to the demands of the next game, obviously depending on the game plan. When we started playing with 3 central defenders, it was in the first tournament that I was in charge and it was mainly because in the Expansion League, and in general in professional soccer in Mexico, the soccer players who play as defenders tend to go out of their way a lot. zone by the rival, zone defense in Mexico is practically non-existent, which is why many spaces are left behind the defensive line. Assessing this problem that we were facing, we have decided that the best thing at that moment, which was also a key moment for us as a technical staff, was to put on one more central defender and have the possibility of having one more cover. To add a footballer to defend that space in depth that rivals tend to exploit here.
Playing a possession-based style is difficult in Mexico due to travel, altitude and the pitches. How did you manage to do this?
The style that we managed to implement in Mineros was somewhat complex at first but it was something that we were very clear from the beginning. It was our first experience in such a position, we were the youngest, we were the most inexperienced, but we were also the bravest and those who had our clearest principles. I think that having shown such strength was something that marked the club because over time it permeated the lower categories and we managed to build a club culture, not only at the pitch level, but even at the office level. I like to work based on Tactical Periodization, I knew a lot about the method, I had read a lot about it and I had been in love with this way of training for almost 5 years but I had never put it into practice at such high levels. For me, the way we managed to train in Zacatecas was the basis of everything, it was the basis for making what we envisioned come true.
At Mineros, you had a lot of youth in management. How did you find this?
When we arrived at the club, we had the post-pandemic process, the league had also undergone many rule and team changes. In general, all the teams lowered their budgets and the age of their players, but in Zacatecas this was more traumatic because they had previously had the best rosters in the competition. This, by itself, was a big challenge because we had to change many things and many habits, even transmitting a completely different message with the fans. I must say that it helped us a lot that Grupo Pachuca, who were the previous owners, left a solid base of young and very talented players and that's what we're driven by. Working with young players is exciting because they are very willing to experience new tactical situations and they are very strong and courageous. We had a group of footballers eager to learn and eager to show that it was their moment.
You use deep fullbacks to create numerical superiority in build-up? In most three centre-back systems, wing-backs are used in attacking roles to stretch the pitch. How do you manage to use the wing-backs in deeper roles?
I would like to go more of this. I think that the roles of a system are inseparable from the characteristics of your players, they also completely depend on what the next game is going to bring up and that is where we enter the field of opponent analysis, which is a subject that I love and that I myself started in that area, I started as a rival analyst before everything happened. For example, I think that in Mineros we managed to play great football because we played games with a lot of risks. From my point of view, nobody played better than us, and that was because there was the conviction that we had to respect the way of playing that we dreamed of so much. The players had so much fun having the ball and not stopping attacking, this added to their youth and desire to excel, resulted in something very attractive to watch. But back to basics, the type of player we had gave us the pattern for everything collective. In terms of getting out of the ball, we generated many superiorities, we tried everything positionally in this phase of the game, and touching on the issue of wingers, they played close to the line and very deep, that fixed rivals and we managed to score a lot of goals, we went in my top 5 management in terms of all offensive indicators. We had fun without fear.
With a lot of movement in the striker position, I label you as a ‘striker-friendly’ coach as your side was routinely one of the highest in XG in the Liga MX de Expansion, how do you go about educating attackers on movements?
Without a doubt, we were a team that gave many facilities to our forwards, multiple goal options and a leading role not only inside the area. We had several players assume that role but perhaps where we achieved the climax was with Juan Calero, who was later transferred to Portuguese soccer. I would really lie to you if I told you that we had movements that were too pre-set by position. What arose at the micro level was often the result of macro behaviors and vice versa! I always opted for having a team full of identity and for people to know that Mineros played in a recognizable way. Also to say that both Alberto Moreno and Josué Ortíz, who were my technical assistants, were in charge of working on specific things for each position and each line at the beginning or end of the training session, we call it: optimization tasks. This all came together and I think our players benefited the most.
In the striker position, a lot of movement is thought of as instinctual and natural but you are able to teach strikers movement due to rehearsed movements around the box. How do you go about doing this?
It is just what I pointed out in the last question, they are things that emerge. Of course, we are setting the tone, but after the socio-affective relationships and others that arise, give shape to the final performance of the striker, and not only the striker, from all positions. Vitor Frade talks about Knowing How to Do and Knowing about Knowing How to Do, that is the matrix of our methodological thinking.
In terms of movement in the box, which areas do you prioritize, near post, centre of the box or back-post?
Here we do have some areas within the area that we prefer over others and that we transmit to our team in this way. In Mexico there are many goals that come from the wings and through crosses the rivals take advantage. Now, the issue of defending the second post in this country is something that is very difficult for defensemen. Mineros was a below average team and we had to think carefully about how we managed to take advantage of this. Our proposal was almost always based on the diagonal center or the center passed to the far post due to the characteristics of the Expansion League defenders as I detailed above. In recent tournaments we have also started to experience our wingers shooting from close to the edge of the box and not so close to the touchline.
How important is the triangular movement and third man run around the box?
The concept of the third man was one of our pillars, not only near the opposing goal but also in our first and second zones. It was a very important argument to be able to progress on their own court and rival court. I must tell you that we also found difficulties in this game concept at first because Mexican players have little ingrained habit of supporting themselves when receiving from behind, they almost always intend to turn and face the opponent, it is a cultural issue, but if If you watched our games, you may have noticed that we scored goals through the third man. That the players knew and executed this behavior was one of my achievements as a coach.
From your coaching career, what do you think is the most important thing about the development of strikers?
Without a doubt, I believe that modern football in any part of the world and even with any style of play, requires forwards to get more and more involved outside the area and to be able to get out of their classic zone of intervention, to fall to the wings, that generate numerical superiority in the midfield, that know how to move with a midfielder as a companion or with another center forward. And I would add something else, which seems logical but plays a very important role... the mental aspect and self-confidence. Forwards are animals that require a mental push that gives them the goal, celebrating a score with their teammates, even though we want to ignore this, it is intrinsic, it is part of them and it makes them enjoy the game because it is the main reason for the one that since children became strikers.
You also teach strikers about scanning and analyzing spaces. How difficult is this process?
These types of very detailed but very important details are usually trained in the optimizer exercises that I already told you about in the past questions. Everything can be trained individually, but I am going to add something equally important: the use of video and visual material. We have a very interesting dynamic of individual improvement with the technical assistants. My assistants have special training in improving the technical gestures of our players, in any position. They have taken training in this regard and have been in charge of it since day 1. To this they add face-to-face video sessions with the boys and in which they have a lot of feedback with them. In addition, something very important is the close bond that they generate between them, which makes everything flow much more naturally, it is a very good pedagogical process.
You coach strikers in moving to a defender’s blind-side, holding runs and double movements as your attacking situations are well-rehearsed. How difficult is it to coach little details like this for strikers?
We don't focus on one or two predetermined movements, I think the game is too complex to try only some movement in space, however, the type of movement of our forwards and our attackers in general, are related to the interactions that occur with the tactical system chosen for each match. It is definitely not the same when we settle in a rival court under a 1-2-3-5 as when we have tried a 1-3-3-4 for example. Although the game is dynamic and the pieces move, the area where you find your teammates naturally influences your radius of action. Speaking of this, one of the movements that is most often seen in our team is to get away from the opponent while keeping a zone and then attacking the back, some breaking uncheck, but beyond that, we tried to have an understanding of the game. over something mechanized.
Do you think that strikers could develop their movement with training and analysis videos?
Undoubtedly they are complementary tools that should not be missing today. However, human beings learn mainly through experiences, which is why they have to experience it. Obviously in today's soccer and how tight their schedules are, rest must often come first and there are very short times left to train and that is where these tools take on greater prominence. Nor should we forget the types of learning that exist, including visual learning, which is why it is important to know our players and know which paths we should take. The players give us all the information.
You also use a lot of low crosses. How come you use this method of creativity?
I couldn't focus on some type of movement only or some type of offensive or defensive resource. We are of the idea that the game is unbreakable and that the players are finding the best solutions, obviously hand in hand with the proposals and the tools that we are able to provide as technical staff. The importance of training as we do it happens right there, because PLAYING takes you where you want, in this sense, the design of training exercises, the sessions and the pattern morphocycle, are our real possibility of providing the team with an identity that we pretend and to operate the next party. Creativity and hierarchy are two fundamental links for us.
Diego Campillo is one of the more highly regarded young players in Mexico, his time under you was very crucial. How do you encourage a young centre-back to drive the ball forward more?
Diego is definitely a special player. I knew it from the beginning, from his first appearances in Tapatío. It is countercultural in my country that a defender has such a capacity to dominate the offensive phase, regularly the training in lower forces for players of his position is based a lot on exclusively defensive situations. There is an idea in Mexico that the defender is only there to defend and that he has to limit himself to passing the ball to the midfielders, nothing more. Diego's case breaks all these beliefs. I still remember his first training session with us, because he immediately made a difference and was also a piece that fit perfectly into our game model. He was constantly finding so many passing lanes naturally, that was great. Later, we gave him enough references so that he could optimize his virtues and so that he would fit in better and better with us. In that tournament we used a rather false 1-4-4-2 and we had other central defenders with good quality as well, that's where we made a decision that I think marked his immediate future, and later, on his return to Tapatío, it favored him a lot. .. reconvert him to be a right back... and a left.
Campillo also played in a variety of positions like midfield, wing-back and left-sided centre-back. Why did you do this and how does this help in his development?
As I answered in the last question, taking Diego to be a right and a left back was the product of several things that were in our context at that time in the team. I also think it went very well because that tournament we broke several records and we played really well; we gave a lot to talk about. Unfortunately, Diego suffered a couple of injuries that deprived him of more playing time but whenever he was available, we used him. He even had moments playing as a libero in line with 3 central defenders. I am sure that his time with us represented an important foundation for all that he is achieving. In addition to football, it was the first time that Diego left Chivas and that he left all the comforts of being in such a big club. It was a win-win, I have no doubt.
What do you think Campillo’s ceiling is and what do you think of his mentality?
I think that we still don't know Diego's true potential, he is very young and has a lot to give, but what I am even more sure of is that he requires an ideal context, he more than anyone else. In order for us to see the most stellar Diego, time, confidence and a team that allows him to shine with the ball is needed. Now he is coming to Liga Mx, which is everyone's dream and goal, and I will be the happiest to see him there, and he is also going to meet Diego Andrei Mejía, who is a very capable coach, a very talented young Mexican coach who I know that he has followed him for a long time and that he is going to find a role for him where he shows us his best version.
Despite coaching in the Liga MX Expansion, you managed to develop players for European teams. How proud of this are you?
I am very young and I came to Mineros even younger and the last thing I thought about was leaving a legacy, I just wanted to be able to translate my ideas and help the team and open a path for myself, but over time and with the help of the club and of the players and my staff mates, we were sowing so many things, sometimes without realizing it, we were doing great things, among them the transfers that were achieved of players to Europe and the United States and Costa Rica. Today I look back at the past and value what we achieved even more, although we did not end it with a championship, we did achieve things that will remain there for a long time to remember. I am very proud to have helped Juan Calero and Israel Davalos to fulfill their dream of playing in Europe, without their confidence in my work and without their humility to listen and let themselves improve, nothing would have been achieved. It is entirely their credit.
You follow basketball a lot and support the Lakers. How has this translated to your footballing identity?
I started to like soccer relatively late, I was not that young anymore, and in those years of indecision about a sport, I remember seeing the broadcast of the Jordan Bulls games, I still remember the style of Dennis Rodman and I was quite amused to watch a little basketball. Later, when I was growing up, the NBA was still a long way away, but when Shaq and Kobe's Lakers arrived, I definitely got closer again. I can watch entire NBA games and I have a great time, I also play PlayStation and I always choose the Lakers, it's a team that I like, one of my dreams is to be able to see them live. Regarding relating some things or tactics of that sport with soccer, it is a subject that I have pending, I still can't find any common thread. I know that there have been coaches in the past who have been able to interrelate both but it is still not my case. I almost always see it more as a fan than as something strategic, but soon I will start exploring that possibility.
Who are the coaches that you look up to and why?
When I started in this job, I always really liked what Mourinho's personality conveyed. I grew up reading multiple articles that talked about him and explained how he trained and what his teams did on the pitch. Later I began to know about André Villas Boas and everything he achieved in Porto drove me crazy, I saw many matches of that team. Of course, I admired Pep and all those coaches who were dazzling the world, but it was more interesting for me to keep track of lesser-known coaches. Another coach who is an absolute reference for me and for whom I have deep admiration is Juan Carlos Osorio. I think his work with the Mexican team is undervalued. I am currently an admirer of De Zerbi's work and what Iraola is achieving, I don't want to forget anyone because there are many coaches that I love but in broad strokes I could mention them.
What are your future plans after Mineros?
Now it's time to rest, reflect on what we did well and what we can improve in the next team. It is very valuable time to prepare more and to read and look at everything that we could not do in the last 3 years. I really wanted to have this time off, in Zacatecas I left everything, I didn't keep anything, it was a huge experience. I want to try new things, to explore new ways of playing, for my next team to be more hybrid and to better manage all phases of the game. For now I am happy and very patient.
Mexico have many talented young players that are not quite making the move up to first-teams within the country. What are your resolutions for this?
Right now Mexican soccer is experiencing difficult times, it seems that many things are being adjusted, after the World Cup in Qatar, many adjustments began. I am of the idea that we have a football with a lot of potential and with enormous possibilities of growth, but that many details need to be moved and changed. The Mexican soccer player is very talented but sometimes he lacks a bit of instruction, it seems to me that this can change if there is a will. We will have to see and wait for what happens in the following tournaments so that there are favorable conditions and new and better young players and new and better young Mexican coaches appear. I am optimistic about it.
