Valero Rivera was coach of top Spanish club FC Barcelona for 21 successful seasons from the 1980’s, until 2005. This was the golden era of Barcelona. Rivera took over as coach of Spain in 2008 and hopes to emulate his club-level success with his national team.

ehf-euro.com contacted Valero Rivera to ask him about the chances of Spain at the EHF EURO 2010 in January.

Valero Rivera: I took over the team a year ago. Back then I thought that we needed changes as we had a number of players in the team who were over 30. I started to work with younger players and we travelled to the World Championship with 16 of them.

ehf-euro.com: Was it a successful attempt?

Valero Rivera: Well, we have only 8-9 young handballers in the team now and we are stronger. The most talented ones are part of our squad, of course. I refer to players such as Tomas, Aguinalde and Canellas. However, Canellas has a serious knee injury, so he is a doubt for EURO. The same is true about Guardiola.

On the other hand, we can count on experienced internationals, such as Garabaya, Enterrios and Morros.

We also had to adapt our defence. Although I prefer a 5-1 defence, the 6-0 suits my team better.

ehf-euro.com: What do you expect from your team at the EURO?

Valero Rivera: We finished in a very disappointing 13th place at the World Championship in Croatia, so we really must improve on that.  We did well in our qualification group against Lithuania and Netherlands, so we have to continue this way.

I expect my team to attain one of the top three places in the Preliminary Group, meaning qualification to the Main Round. It will be difficult, though. The Czech team is very strong and we also have Hungary and France in the group.

ehf-euro.com: How do you prepare for the EURO?

Valero Rivera: To be honest, I prefer having more training sessions than matches. In October, for example, we were training hard during the national team week and played only one game. I prefer actually working with the guys.

Nevertheless, we will play a tournament in Spain and then in France in January.

ehf-euro.com: You were a successful club coach in the past. What’s the difference between that and overseeing a national team?

Valero Rivera: A coach in my position depends on the work done in the clubs very much. A national side has little time to prepare together, in our case only 15 days. It is very important that we work with the same players in this short period.

All in all, I believe coaching a national team is more difficult...

ehf-euro.com: Finally, which teams do you think can reach the semi-finals of the EURO at the end of January 2010?

Valero Rivera: I could only name France in this respect. There are some 6-7 teams who have a chance for the remaining three places.

ehf-euro.com: Spain is one of them?

Valero Rivera: That would be an illusion to say... I believe we can finish among the best six teams, but it will be very important to start well against a very strong Czech Republic at the EURO opener.