Spanish wing-back is Premier League’s top goalscoring defender and learned his trade while his father was coaching a Greek playmaker at Sevilla
The unorthodox threat presented by Marcos Alonso from wing-back doesn’t happen by chance. It stems from a unique upbringing for a third-generation player, whose grandfather and father were exceptional players in their own right.
Alonso’s father, Marcos Alonso Pena, was later a coach and consequently Alonso moved around quite a bit during his childhood. One such move was to Seville, when his father was coaching at Sevilla. One of his charges in those days was the Greek playmaker Vassilios Tsiartas, regarded as the finest player of his generation and who was a winner at Euro 2004.
Tsiartas was a perfectionist renowned for his skill on free kicks and he would spend time after training working on his technique. Nicknamed ‘El Mago’ by the Sevilla fans, Tsiartas would have ‘Marquitos’ for company during these sessions.
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“His dad was by far the best coach I had in my career, a coach who helped me through many things. I scored 18 goals after he arrived and we got promoted to the top league,” Tsiartas tells Goal. “Marcos senior – every Friday in training when we finished the warm-up – always sent me to go practice free kicks as realistically as possible with a wall and goalkeeper.
“And there were days when Marquitos, which was what we called him, came along. He looked closely at how I was taking those free kicks. Sometimes I let him take a kick, despite the fact that he was a little boy of 10 or 11 years old.
“I remember he was often frustrated because he didn’t have the sufficient power to get the ball to the goal. He was just a kid so I told him not to be disappointed, stressing that what he had to do was to find the right shot, the right sense of the kick, keep practising and in time he would be able to send the ball whenever and however he wanted to send it.
“He followed that and he practised a lot and so we admire him today for scoring with magnificent free kicks.
“He always had a ball at his feet! Even if he were in a hotel lobby, at the locker rooms, everywhere, he couldn’t stop playing and kicking!”
Alonso might well have played alongside Mohamed Salah, Isco and Cesc Fabregas but Tsiartas remains the best striker of a ball he has seen.
“I remember a Greek player from Sevilla, Vassilios Tsiartas,” Alonso wrote in Chelsea’s matchday programme earlier this season.
“He was the best free kick taker I have seen in my life, I think. I learned from him in training. I used to hit the ball, like, five metres from goal because I couldn’t reach!
“But I remember him telling me, “When you are 14, 15 years old, you will take free kicks like me’. I couldn’t even imagine that, but today I do my best.”
Alonso is on a fine goalscoring run for Chelsea these days having netted in the recent win over Tottenham and in the weekend draw at Bournemouth. The Spaniard had a long spell out of the team, playing just one Premier League game between late October and his return to the team on February 22 to face Tottenham.
The 29-year-old has now scored 19 goals since joining the club, making him the Premier League’s most dangerous goalscoring defender. And those recent goals – a long-range strike, a first-time volley and diving header put him at the top of Chelsea’s scoring charts in 2020.
He could have had a hat-trick against Bournemouth after hitting the bar with a Tsiartas-like free kick.
“A kid who looked like he was going to play football, no doubt,” Tsiartas says. “Of course, no one could have foreseen how he would get to this top level that he’s at right now, as he was too young, but he seemed to carry on the family tradition.
“A child who was constantly asking, beyond free kicks, he wanted to learn, always taking notice, always listening, always trying to get anything he could from anyone who could provide it. And obviously, he did not fail; he is an accomplished footballer, excelling at the very top level.”
Primarily, Alonso is a defender but no coach would pass up his goalscoring prowess. Chelsea manager Frank Lampard might need to make more use of his left-sided weapon in his bid to finish among the Premier League top four.
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