Last updated 10:53, Thursday, 30 October 2008

English football as moral beacon is a tricky concept to wrestle with, but that’s precisely how Zigor Aranalde sees it now he has taken his leave of the country after eight years.

Zigor Aranalde

The former Carlisle United defender is back in his homeland, playing for Spanish fourth-tier side UD Almansa, but feels like a foreigner in a sporting culture from which he recoils.

“If I am honest, the football here is rubbish,” Aranalde says. “The way players behave with referees is terrible. They are all day long on the floor and it is embarrassing.

“In England, it is football. Here, it is a game similar to football. English football is more honest, and Spanish football has a long way to go to be anything like it.”

If that sounds suspiciously like the voice of a man who is pining for his former glories, the suspicion is correct. Aranalde misses England, Carlisle and Carlisle United more than he could ever have imagined.

Now 35 and with his career’s end in sight, Aranalde peers into the future and the one thought he can’t shift from his mind is the idea of hopping on a plane and resuming his professional life in England.

“I’m going to start doing my coaching badges next week,” he says. “So I will soon see how much I enjoy being back at school!

“I had so many good times in England with Walsall and Carlisle that it could be interesting to come back.

“I enjoyed England – the country and the football – and to go back as a coach or manager is something I am thinking about.

“If I had the chance to work with either of those clubs, I wouldn’t think twice. To manage Carlisle would be a dream for me. I love the club and the people there, so we will see what the future brings.”

Should such a tantalising scenario come to pass, you trust Aranalde will lean closer towards Roberto Martinez at Swansea as his Spanish managerial example in England, rather than, say, J Ramos of Tottenham. “Roberto has done a great job,” Aranalde acknowledges.

“He is the first Spanish footballer to play in England and then become a manager there. It’s something that can happen.”

Aranalde has said his piece on his exit from Carlisle and will not linger on the obvious difference in views between himself and John Ward, who dropped the Basque after a February defeat at Oldham and sidelined him thereafter.

“It’s clear we had totally different personalites,” says Aranalde. “I didn’t agree with his ideas, he didn’t like me and that was clear. That’s life. It happens and it will happen to every young player at some time.

“I was sad because I don’t think I deserved to leave the way I did, but apart from that, the club has always been magnificent with me.

“After I left, it wasn’t an easy summer. I wanted to stay in England for at least another year, especially to give my son more time here, but nothing came. There were a few rumours, but I only had one phonecall from Oldham, and they were taking the p*** a bit. It was a bit surprising that nothing else happened, but that’s how things happen sometimes.

“It’s never easy to say goodbye. I got to know a lot of people and I enjoyed living in the area. It was especially difficult for the boy. Asier made good friends at school and he is the one who misses the place more than anybody. I’m sure he will come back to England in the future if he has the chance.”

The extent of Aranalde’s contact with United now stretches to regular internet viewings to monitor their results, and occasional phonecalls to former colleagues such as Simon Hackney, with whom he enjoyed a productive relationship down the left flank.

On their current woes in League One, he simply offers a respectful view that the squad contains more than enough talent to arrest the decline. In any case, he has his own club’s troubles to contend with just now.

“We won the last game 2-0 but that is the first game I have enjoyed,” he says of Almansa, a semi-pro team in the province of Albacete from where his wife, Begona, hails.

“We’re not in the best of situations. But the manager was sacked recently and we got a younger man, and I think he will be much better.

“We should be fighting to get promotion, and if that happens we will be playing at a decent level again. If the body is alright, I will carry on.

“I’m training more now than when I was a professional, which is unusual. Maybe with this new manager I will enjoy it more, but of course I am thinking more and more of the future. The only thing I have done with my life since I left school is play football, and I will put all my efforts towards being a coach or a manager.

“You can’t be a manager in Spain without your badges. I could be manager of Carlisle tomorrow, but not in Spain.” A thought for his many admirers to clutch, no doubt, next time the Brunton Park vacancy comes along.