From Axarquia’s Quiet Streets To World Cup Glory

Every mini municipality successful nan world has its dreamers, but fewer really make it.

But here’s a section leader that made it from nan quiet streets of Velez-Malaga to nan biggest shot shape connected nan planet. Alvaro Reina, a 45-year-old calved successful Benamargosa, conscionable pulled that off. The Andalusian coach will beryllium heading to nan 2026 FIFA World Cup successful nan United States, Mexico, and Canada. Not pinch Spain, but pinch Qatar.

Reina is going arsenic nan right-hand man to nary different than coach Julen Lopetegui, nan erstwhile Real Madrid and Spain boss.

Qatar’s melodramatic summons to nan World Cup

Reina’s squad booked their spot successful axenic heart-attack fashion. On October 14, successful a tense qualifier astatine Al-Rayyan Stadium, Qatar edged past nan United Arab Emirates. 2-1 last score, but surviving 15 minutes of other clip and a precocious scare.

Boualem Khoukhi and Pedro Miguel were nan section heroes of nan night, giving Qatar a two-goal cushion earlier chaos hit. A reddish card, a 98th-minute extremity from Sultan Adill Alamiri, and an anxious last whistle later, nan Qataris had qualified for nan world’s astir important competition.

Had nan UAE moreover drawn that game, it would’ve been them packing for nan World Cup adjacent summer. Instead, Reina and Lopetegui’s chair erupted successful chaotic celebration.

A quiet career, a world leap

Alvaro Reina.
Credit: Deportes Velez-Malaga Facebook page.

Alvaro Reina isn’t 1 of those flashy ex-players turned coaches. He’s nan shot nerd type, nan 1 that plays Football Manager and dreams. He’s analytical, sometimes obsessive, and pinch a résumé that’s softly elite. He’s worked down nan scenes astatine Deportivo Alaves, Levante, and moreover Malaga CF, returning location aggregate times during different coaching cycles.

He’s besides travelled a batch during his career. He worked pinch Panama’s nationalist team, Dnipro successful Ukraine, and moreover English clubs for illustration Watford and Huddersfield, ever serving arsenic adjunct coach aliases tactical analyst.

And that operation of shot cultures is precisely what made him guidelines retired for Lopetegui’s task successful Qatar. The man from Velez knows really to accommodate wherever he is called to help.

From Axarquia to nan world

For Velez-Malaga and for nan full Axarquia, this is much than a feel-good story. Reina represents a talented procreation of Spanish coaches exporting their know-how acold beyond their location state and chasing challenges that spell measurement beyond comfortableness zones.

As Reina prepares to return his spot connected nan World Cup stage, he’s carrying a spot of Andalusian pridefulness pinch him. When he steps onto nan World Cup shape adjacent summer, galore fans from Axarquia will cheer for him. After all, this is our guy.

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