Barcelona figures Laporta & Enrique pay tribute to Sir Bobby Robson
Saturday, August 1, 2009 @ 1:44 PM
The tributes have flown in from Catalunya for the legendary manager.
Spain has joined the mourning of mythical football figure, Sir Bobby Robson who passed away on July 31 following his long battle with cancer. The 76-year-old had a very brief but extremely successful one-year spell as the coach of Barcelona in the 1996/97 season and the Catalan juggernauts have joined in the tributes.
Current club president, Joan Laporta immediately addressed the media after hearing news of Robson’s passing while in the United States of America for the team’s pre-season tour.
“We will always have personal and professional memories of him,” Barca’s official website quoted him saying.
“He was a gentleman of football and at Barca, he also won the treble (Supercup, Cup Winners’ Cup and Copa del Rey).
“He arrived at a period when he had won everything and in the time he was with us, he got some good results. We are very grateful for that. Only a man of his experience could have dealt with the situation like he did.
“He came back to the Camp Nou not long ago and we had the pleasure of looking after him. He was a really charming man, a true gentleman. Nobody could have a bad word to say about him.
“He always spoke well of Barca and always showered great love for the club.
Meanwhile, one of Robson’s pupils, Luis Enrique, who is now the coach of Barca Athletic, said, “It was a fantastic year both for football and for personal experiences. Although he was only on the bench for a year, Robson was a manager who left his mark.
“He was a very intimate man. He found it hard to speak Spanish and instead spoke to us in English, but he was very intimate in his manner.
“He is a great loss not just in a footballing sense. People only had good words for him wherever he went. He was a very likable person on a human level.”
Real Madrid and Juventus also paid tribute to Robson by holding a one-minute silence prior to their semi-final Peace Cup clash on Friday evening. Barcelona will be represented at his funeral by one of the vice presidents.
www.goal.com/en-us/news/85/england/2009/07/31/1415524/barcelona-figures-laporta-enrique-pay-homage-to-sir-bobby