Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at
If it is up to Gerard Piqué, Champions League football will eventually be played in Andorra. Since December 2018, the 33-year-old center-back has, with his Kosmos Holding Group, been the owner of FC Andorra, the only club of the pyramid state in the Pyrenees that is active in the Spanish football pyramid. Recently, Piqué’s ambitious project has a Dutch touch, because Hector Hevel recently exchanged AEK Larnaca for FC Andorra, already at the third level in the Segunda División B.
By Chris Meijer
Hevel laughs when his thoughts return to the Nou Estadi Municipal de Palamós. In the coastal town of Palamós on the Costa Brava, he faced UE Llagostera in his first match for FC Andorra. That his new club in Spain, and especially for opponents, is inextricably linked to Piqué, then became clear to him. “People were shouting at us about Piqué. Well, that is not about anything. You notice that people automatically start to respond more to you, it is quite alive ”, laughs Hevel. It is not entirely illogical. Besides the fact that Piqué is the owner and regularly shows his face in Andorra, shoot Els Tricolors up the Spanish soccer pyramid. And the advance is far from over, if it is up to the defender of Barcelona.
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Voetbalzone previously wrote this background story about Gerard Piqué’s business activities.
It has been almost two years since Piqué became the owner of FC Andorra with his Kosmos Group. He founded the investment company together with Hiroshima Mikitani (boss of Barcelona’s main sponsor Rakuten) and Edmund Chu (director of Chinese management and marketing agency SECA). After Kosmos was involved in the production of the documentary La Decisión on Antoine Griezmann’s decision to stay with Atlético Madrid in the summer of 2018, with a multi-billion dollar project overhauling the Davis Cup tournament in tennis and investing in sunglasses (Kypers), organic burgers (Natrus), sports drinks (426 Miles) and eSports (e.football.pro), it was decided to get into football too. It will have raised some eyebrows that FC Andorra was ultimately chosen, which in December 2018 was only just above the relegation line at the fifth level in the Primera Catalana and had a debt of 300,000 euros. Moreover, the club never played higher than the third level in its 78 years of existence.
Piqué gave in conversation with the BBC to know that he had heard of FC Andorra ‘through via’ and saw an ‘interesting opportunity’ because in this case, unlike the other clubs in the basement of Spanish football, a whole country would be behind the club. He also said that he did not want to be a pure investor, but that he actually wanted to influence the policy to enable a rise in Spanish football. This soon became clear, because immediately after taking office, former Ajax players Gabri and Albert Jorquera were appointed as trainers to implement the Barcelona philosophy in Andorra. Moreover, with Federico Bessone, Marti Riverola and Adria Vilanova, a number of youth products from Barcelona arrived immediately.
Former Ajax player Gabri was coach of FC Andorra between December 2018 and February 2020, but was fired due to disappointing results.
It resulted in the first promotion in 2019, which was immediately followed by the next step in the Spanish football pyramid. CF Reus Deportiu was forced to relegate from Segunda División B, because the club could no longer pay its players. Zamora, Jaen, Intercity and Linares took the spot on the third level, but missed out because FC Andorra put an amount of 452,022 euros on the table. In the last season, which was cut short by the corona crisis, the Piqué club finished ninth, a disappointing performance as evidenced by the fact that Gabri received his congé during the year. This year FC Andorra has to seriously participate in promotion to the second level. To achieve that, the selection was considerably strengthened last summer and one of the thirteen players who were recruited was Hevel. The 24-year-old youth product of ADO Den Haag played for AEK Larnaca in Cyprus for the past three and a half years, won the cup there and played in the Europa League.
Hevel decided after last season that it was time for a new challenge, despite the fact that AEK Larnaca wanted to extend with him. “In a personal and sporting sense, I was looking for a new challenge, a bit in the European direction. The corona crisis made it a bit more difficult, options were scarcer and clubs started to narrow their selections. And let’s be honest: Cyprus is a beautiful island and everything is good there, but it is less viewed from the outside ”, admits Hevel. He trained for a while at VVV-Venlo, where he already knew director of player policy Stan Valckx. “I didn’t know the trainer yet and they wanted to see if it worked out on both sides. I held it off for a while, but later I tried. It was okay, I got an offer. But it ultimately failed. The Netherlands was an option, but nothing really came of it that I thought: this is going to be something. ”
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Voetbalzone previously spoke with Hevel when he was still playing at AEK Larnaca.
“I was able to stay in Cyprus with another club, but that didn’t make much progress for me. Unless they really pay you a fortune, then you have to scratch your ear twice. I could go to Poland, countries like that. But did that make me happy right now? I really had something in mind and for that reason I did not look at the money, but really at the sporty aspect. In that case, the money doesn’t matter because I earn less here than I could earn in other countries. I can say that. But that was not important to me ”, he continues. In October, two concrete options remained, including an offer from FC Andorra. For Hevel, son of a Dutch father and Spanish mother, the miniature state was in principle unknown territory, although he was already aware of Piqué’s ambitions with the club.
In addition, his agent lives in Andorra, which allowed him to talk about the club and its aspirations. “It was actually arranged within a few days. They were very interested, they showed. I spoke with the director and the coach, wanted to see what kind of football they had in mind, what role I should play in it and what exactly the ambitions were. These are factors that help to decide. I like everything and the contract is reasonable for what I wanted at the time, then it is quickly done. My family lives in Barcelona, two and a half hours away. I know the culture and the language, I know how it works and therefore had no adjustment problems. That is also important. ”
Avui el @fcandorra fa 78 anys! ?? I mireu qui ha vingut a celebrar-ho amb nosaltres! ??#SomTricolors ?????? pic.twitter.com/vAJESB5CmL
– FC Andorra (@fcandorra) October 15, 2020
“Of course it also played a role that Piqué is involved in the project. Not decisive, but it does play a role. He is the poster of the club, which is very important. He has a very well-known name at clubs, which is why they come to see FC Andorra. Players are taken out of here and that’s important, because you may have the ambition to take it one step further. At the third level you must have a club with a project and ambition, because otherwise you end up somewhere you do not want to end up, ”Hevel admits. He points to Moha Keita (to Getafe) and Moussa Sidibé (to Ponferradina), who made a step up from FC Andorra last summer.
Piqué not only acts as a showcase and investor at FC Andorra, but also regularly shows his face in the Camp de Fútbol de Prada de Moles. Prior to the first league game against Llagostera, the 102-time Spain international addressed the selection (‘about how he wants to see it this season’) and during that game he sat in the stands with his wife Shakira and their children. “He is involved in the club, you can tell. We were also told that we could always report to him or the director if there was anything. He is not very old, that makes it different. Owners are normally a bit older. But he is very friendly, just came over to say hello and act like a normal person. That is important, that you have an owner who is approachable and very involved. He would like the project to run smoothly, he benefits from that. It is more than just investing, but also building something and convincing or attracting players. I think he is now also building a hotel for the club, that is serious investment. There are more plans when we graduate, I heard about a new stadium. ”
Hevel is ready for a shot in the home game against Espanyol B (2-2).
The Camp de Fútbol de Prada de Moles in the hamlet of Encamp is not yet exactly a home for a club with the ambitions to one day play in the Champions League. Incidentally, shortly after Piqué took office, there were often no more than fifteen people in the stands. Now there are an average of three to four hundred, which approximates the capacity of five hundred spectators. Although this maximum number can still be increased, because at the championship match of more than a year ago, another thousand people watched from the mountains. “Now that an audience is not allowed, I don’t know whether it is alive among the people. Every now and then you get comments to your head: ‘Oh are you playing there? Good luck, do your best ‘. Andorra is a small football country with a modest league of its own. That has been said with great respect. They like football here, but our team consists mainly of Spaniards. ”
The first season of Hevel is immediately one of the truth. The Spanish football pyramid will be overhauled after the current year. Currently 102 clubs play at the third level, divided into ten different leagues. This will be reduced to two competitions of twenty clubs next season. In order to have a chance at all for a place in this, a place in the top six must be achieved in the regular competition that runs until March. The first three get a chance to be promoted to the second level in a final round and are at least assured of a place in one of the new competitions on the third level. After three draws and a defeat in the first five games, the pressure is immediately on. “It can go fast, look at RCD Mallorca. They went from Segunda B to LaLiga in two years. You notice that everyone is kept on their toes to win everything and participate in promotion. ”
From the sunny coastal town of Larnaca to an apartment in the Pyrenees: the living conditions in Hevel have changed somewhat. “But this also has its charm and that’s how you see the world, right?” Hevel asks with a smile. Today he trains at an altitude of 1,300 meters and in three degrees, instead of the scorching heat of Cyprus. “The training was not that bad for me. But recently we played a game in the evening and then I noticed it very much, because of the humidity I was short of air. You see that the opponents get tired at some point in the second half. In Cyprus it was a bit the same with the heat. That is also difficult if you come from outside Cyprus. ” The intention is that in the long term Liverpool, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Barcelona will also have to deal with this. With a grin, Hevel concludes: “Who knows what the future will bring. It’s nice that you ended up in a project where you can grow with the club. ”