WATFORD TURN THE TABLES ‘Next season we want to be not only sixth, we want to be first’
Triple sessions are all well and good but it’s playing pool, ping-pong and darts which helped…
TThere is a quiet satisfaction about the place. With 46 points on the board, this is sure to be their best Premier league campaign as they turn their minds towards reaching the FA cup final for the first time since 1984.
Etienne capoue and Tom cleverley dominate the pool table and attract a crowd. Winner stays on. Andre Gray arrives with something on his phone that everyone simply has to see as they organise breakfast.
Smoothies, juice and espressos are on the go and Gerard Deulofeu and Miguel Britos top up their gourds of yerba mate tea with hot water. ‘It helps us put the phones away and have a nice conversation,’ says Uruguayan Britos. ‘It creates time to talk to each other.’
It is Ben Foster’s 36th birthday and Heurelho Gomes, who bursts in to the sort of cheer reserved for the funniest friend on a night out, rushes across to give his goalkeeping colleague a hug. The spirit
inside Watford is one of their strengths; a reason they defy the odds; a reason they make changes for competitions such as the FA cup without losing momentum.
Manager Javi Gracia takes much of the credit but all agree this unity has been reinforced since the pool and ping-pong tables and dart board were delivered on the first day of pre- season, a sweetener for the gruelling double and triple sessions the coaching staff had in mind.
cleverley and craig cathcart rule at pool, according to Britos, who ranks himself ‘fourth or fifth’ best, while Adrian Mariappa and Daryl Janmaat are in the final of a table-tennis tournament.
‘The new games area has helped break down barriers,’ said Mariappa. ‘It’s natural for the Spanish lads and the French lads to sit together when they’re talking but when we’re playing games it doesn’t matter about different languages and cultures.’
Troy Deeney collects an orange and chats with the canteen staff as he peels it and explains how he can’t sleep after a night match and went home, watched the Fulham game again and was still struggling to switch off as the clock ticked by four in the morning.
Television screens are showing the goals. Will Hughes sees his volley fly in and blushes as someone throws him a compliment. JAVI GrAcIA is feigning infuriation as he tries one more time to explain to an English colleague the correct pronunciation of his name. It’s pronounced ‘Graaaaa-thya’, he explains, touching a finger to the tip of his tongue to emphasise the Spanish lisp. Not ‘Grass-eeeeeya’.
It doesn’t actually rhyme with sangria, he points out, with a reference to the song Watford fans have adopted in his honour, and which his three sons like to sing in his presence even though they are fully aware of how to pronounce their own surname. He concedes
defeat, throws down a hand as if to say, ‘Oh, just forget it’ and grins.
Gracia is a popular figure, his modest and self-effacing manner masking a steely determination. He appears an ideal fit for a club where the head coach has proved highly disposable since Gino Pozzo took control in 2012.
Slavisa Jokanovic was replaced after promotion and Quique Sanchez Flores after avoiding an instant relegation and reaching the FA Cup semi- finals. The demands inside Watford are much higher than many onlookers expect for a club of its size.
Little Watford? Pozzo was never going to be satisfied with simple survival. He wanted more, which is the reason why the landmark of 46 points was important and why they go to Wembley tomorrow to compete to win rather than to savour the day.
‘This is a healthy club,’ says Gracia, with a glance around the training ground. He has been in his office since 7am, studying a re- run of the 4- 1 win against Fulham and a recording of FA Cup semi- final opponents Wolves against Manchester United at Molineux.
When the players train at noon, he is out on the grass with the eight outfield players who were not involved the night before.
‘You can see the players are alive with ambition,’ says Gracia, who has not made it to a final since he was playing for Athletic Bilbao’s Under 18s. ‘They don’t stop, they want more. We have to enjoy the moment, enjoy a special season, enjoy the journey and be realistic but we must be demanding.
‘To reach the top six is not easy. There is a big difference with these six clubs but when you start something you always want to be the best. Next season when we start again, we want to be not only sixth, we want to be first. We want to be the champions. ‘You start with that mentality and, after, you will see where you are. If I have to speak about that, I prefer not to say I want to finish sixth, or play in Europe because I don’t know if we can achieve this. ‘I prefer to be demanding in short spaces. We need the next three points. That’s the best target. We need to win the semi-final because we want to enjoy playing in a final for our supporters to have one special day.’ ADrIAN MArIAPPA joined Watford at the age of nine. At 32, in his second spell at the club, he recalls those days with his dad, sitting at the back of a rickety wooden stand which no longer exists to see Gifton Noel-Williams make his debut.
He remembers the dark days when the club almost went bust. ‘Testing times,’ admits Mariappa. ‘We had some troubles. Back then to now is night and day. The progress made in such a short space of time since the Pozzo family came in is incredible.’
It was December 2009 when Watford lurched towards administration, ordered to pay back loans of £4.9million within 36 hours. Saracens were playing rugby union at The Vic and Malky Mackay’s team, heavily reliant on loans and recent academy graduates, escaped relegation into the third tier by winning three of the last five games.
Progress has been rapid — stability, play- offs, promotion, survival and two FA Cup semifinals — and an identity is being forged around senior players who have witnessed it all and who defy the myth of a transient playing staff.
Next season will be the fifth successive campaign in the top flight, only one short of the golden era of the Eighties when they were promoted under Graham Taylor and finished as runners-up behind Liverpool in 1983.
Six players who started the first Premier League game of the Pozzo era in August 2015 are still at the club and will ensure lessons are passed on from the FA Cup semifinal defeat by Crystal Palace in April 2016.
‘We are much more mature,’ says Britos. ‘More experienced. We didn’t confront that semi-final like we should: aggressive and focused. We were nervous, didn’t start well and we lost.
‘We will not miss this match mentally. We will face this game knowing we are a strong team and if we do our best we will win.’