The Big Interview: Conchi Sánchez
One of Spain's greatest players over three decades, Conchi Sánchez spent the last year of her career in England with Arsenal, before settling in the country where she still resides today.
Spain’s Conchi Sánchez was one of the finest footballers anywhere in the world through three decades, spanning from the 1970s through to the mid-1990s.
Known as Conchi, or her full name Concepción Sánchez-Freire, or even the nickname Amancio, which she gained because of comparisons to the Real Madrid legend for her playing style, Conchi won seven Serie A titles during a successful career in Italy between her first title in 1973, and her last in 1989.
At 13, Conchi played in the first professional women’s football match in Spain, with her Sizam team beating Mercacredit 5-1 in front of 8,000 fans in Villaverde, and Conchi scoring despite having only just become a teenager, the game which sparked MARCA to give her the Amancio association.
A year later, she played in Spain’s first ever national team game, unofficially, in 1971, captaining the team, but played for the team for just three years because when the team was formally recognised, she wasn’t selected due to playing outside of Spain.
Her form despite her age had brought her attention around Europe, leading her to move to Italy at the age of just 15 and become a professional footballer.
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Conchi became the first ever professional Spanish women’s player and enjoyed huge success across her 20 plus years in Italy. The striker went from earning hundreds to thousands and was one of the best paid players in Europe, having previously been working as a hairdresser’s apprentice in Italy alongside her football duties.
She was a footballer described as having ‘pure class’, and she spent every year bar one of her professional career in Serie A, the last year before retirement beckoned in 1997.
At the age of 38, the magical forward was studying linguistics in Italy, alongside doing her coaching qualifications, and was sending her CVs to clubs around Europe, but particularly in England, in the hope of being able to kickstart the second part of her career outside of Italy.
Because of the lack of information around women’s football at the time, Conchi was an unknown in England despite a distinguished career overseas, and she was asked to come for a trial by manager Vic Akers at the time, despite approaching the last year of her career.
“I just sent my CV to Vic, a great manager. He created Arsenal…”
“I always liked English football,” says Conchi, who has resided in England ever since arriving in the mid-1990s. “The reality was when I came to Arsenal, women’s football in England was moving forward and in Italy it was going backwards.
“There was a transition going on. New players like Kelly Smith were coming through, she was coming through when I joined with some other great young players. There were some great British players, they just weren’t professional, but not just from England. Scotland, Ireland, there was a big movement.”
Speaking about the opportunity to spend the last year of her career at England’s most dominant side of that era, Conchi describes it as an “opportunity” to do something different.
“I just sent my CV to Vic, a great manager. He created Arsenal. There were no connections, no transfers, so I went on a trial. I was at the end of my career, I just wanted to come to England and always had.
“I came to England to study anyway, that’s why I was writing to clubs, and they accepted me. I had to work very, very hard to get the shirt. I played for the reserves for a while just to get through. I trained hard, but I was honoured to represent Arsenal.”
Now 65 and living in Bristol, she admits she “played too little” because of her age and the stage she was at in her career, with an Arsenal team thriving game by game.
She recalls Akers being interviewed for a documentary in Spain about her career and how “pleasant” and “positive” he was about her, and she has fond memories of the players she got to play with during her time in North London.
“It was a wonderful experience to play in England,” she smiles. “A different system, a different sort of football. It was not like now. Women’s football was transitioning, but it was a great experience.
“I remember playing with Marieanne Spacey up front. She was the centre forward and in Italy I was a number 10, but in Spain I’d been a striker. Kelly was coming through too. We played some matches at Highbury, which was impressive and now I wish I could have come earlier.
“Vic said that too, but I made a living in Italy and in England at that time the majority of players were paying to play. We were quite spoiled in Italy in that sense. I was quite surprised to be asked to pay!”
She has now been in England over 20 years, and her story since is incredible, inspiring and at times, heart-breaking, for a player who was at one point one of the world’s biggest stars.
Conchi won the league title with Arsenal and in the last game of the season, and her career, she scored the winner in a 3-2 win against Liverpool, played at Anfield, before walking away at the age of 40 to become a coach.
But she found it hard in England, admitting she “struggled because I didn’t know the system” and was one of only two women on her coaching course, the other being England head coach at the time Hope Powell.
“I was struggling, I was on benefits for a few years, really isolated…”
Conchi moved further south to Brighton, where she lived for 12 years, to coach young children, but nothing came of it, and things got worse as the years went by.
“The level didn’t allow me to pass my qualifications and I was very disappointed. I couldn’t find a professional team to coach. I stopped, I said ‘that’s enough and went into holistic therapy and health related qualifications.
“I kept coaching, but just children, on and off, nothing professional. I was struggling, I was on benefits for a few years, really isolated. It was very, very tough. It was refreshing to come away from football though, to grow as a person, to be able to study something different. I struggled, but I was always doing something, getting by, but I developed and grew a lot as a person.
“I applied for positions. I wanted to teach languages, but didn’t get the position, but this came up in holistic therapies and I took that opportunity, but it’s a difficult market because it’s not very well understood. I am running now a web page online about what I do. I do some personal football coaching, coach children from 5 to 14 years old and a session for under 5s on a Sunday.”
Conchi still lives in Bristol and was involved in coaching schools at Filton College, which was once home to Bristol Academy in the Women’s Super League, and she admits she used to go and watch Bristol regularly before COVID-19, then the team relocated to Bath and she lost contact, but she still watches football, particularly the WSL.
“I have been here a long time now,” she says. “I was in Brighton, because London was too much for me! I love London, but I needed quieter places. I would commute and stay over sometimes, but I stayed in Brighton for 12 years before moving to Bristol.
“I found the weather difficult. The language, I couldn’t communicate as much, but the weather was the worst. The cold training sessions, but I’m used to that now!”