After seven years at West Ham, Valero felt the time was right for a change and had no hesitation when rejoining Liverpool was presented as an option.
“There were a couple of things lined up but then Liverpool called and I’ll say it again: I was lucky to be called 18 years ago and now I am lucky to again be called by Liverpool. I just said ‘yes’, there wasn’t much to think about!” the 52-year-old said.
“When Liverpool calls you, you just have to say yes. It’s one of those clubs. There are a few of them in the world that when they call you, you have to say yes, and Liverpool is one of them.”
As head of first-team goalkeeper coaching, Valero heads up a new-look department at the AXA Training Centre, with Colin Stewart having also arrived this summer as goalkeeper development and pathway lead.
Valero detailed: “My job is not that different to the ones I have done before. I have had different roles in the past but I have always been on the grass and I have always been first-team goalkeeping coach in all the teams I have been with over the years.
“I don’t know if I’m a ‘better’ coach now than the first time I was here but football evolves and we, as coaches, have to evolve also. I feel I have more experience, I have seen more, I have been lucky enough to work in big clubs in all these years, but I would say that I just evolve with the times and football has moved on.
“The role of the goalkeeper has moved on and keeps doing so, it’s constantly evolving and becoming more complicated for goalkeepers to tick all the boxes during the game. As a coach, you need to support a goalkeeper in all those areas of the game.
“Now at Liverpool I am head of first-team goalkeeping, which means basically that anything related to first-team business around the goalkeepers is under my umbrella.
“But the thing is that Liverpool is a big club and there are a few goalkeepers on the books. Some of them are on loan and then you have talented goalkeepers in the Academy.
“We have Mark Morris, who has been with the club a long time, with the U21s, and then Colin is going to be my assistant but he is mainly going to be a transition goalkeeping coach who is looking after the goalkeepers we have on loan, so Vit [Vitezslav Jaros] at Ajax and Harvey [Davies] at Crawley Town, plus being in constant touch and establishing the communication with Mark.
“Obviously the first-team schedule is so hectic with so many games, so my focus has to be on the first team and Colin’s focus is going to be on the transition goalkeepers and the goalkeepers that we have on loan.”
