OUT OF WORK
ALIVE AND KICKIN!
It has been just over a year since Angel Gallego took over as Unidesa Gaming's managing director. Cirsa's president, Don Manuel Lao gave Gallego the job partly because the challenge facing Unidesa Gaming was immense and partly because he felt that his new appointee would not be a man likely to crack under the enormous pressure and stress that are part and parcel of the task.
Under Gallego's direction Unidesa Gaming has moved forward in gigantic leaps and bounds. Gallego's first task was to build a team and the necessary positive spirit that goes with it. 'Work hard and play hard' has become an accepted fact of life for anyone who carries a Unidesa Gaming business card.
Away from work Angel has two sure-fire methods of ensuring that stress does not affect him. He calls them his 'two Fs', family and football. When he joined Unidesa Gaming the first and most dramatic effect was his enforced move from Madrid to Terrassa, close to Barcelona. For a lifelong supporter of Real Madrid football club this was potentially a move into enemy territory, particularly as the majority of his new colleagues were hardened FC Barcelona supporters. Cirsa are primary supporters of FC Terrassa (who play in the Spanish second division (B' league) and have links - including some highly coveted season tickets - to FC Barcelona. So Monday mornings in the Unidesa building have an extra edge, depending on which way the weekend's results for Spain's top two teams have gone! If Real have won then it is normal for Angel to go on an office by office tour of his troops. If results have not gone to plan (and remember that Real are currently Spain's top club in La Liga) then Angel can usually be found closer to his desk until lunchtime!
Now settled in the charming Terrassa suburb of Matadepera with wife Olga and young sons Sergio and Raul (both of his children's names having an overt football link!) the Gallego family have made new friends and formed the kind of secure home base that is so necessary for those of us who travel too much away from home.
Angel sees it like this: "Sure, all of my team have to travel a lot, it is the nature of the global business that we are in. But it can be hard, on the families more so than ourselves, so we all owe it to our loved ones to make the most of the time we can spend together."
It was the former manager of England's Liverpool FC, Bill Shankly, who made the famous quotation: "Football is not a matter of life and death; it is much more important than that". Angel Gallego is a firm subscriber to that kind of dedication. Some years ago, growing up in his native Madrid, Gallego played football on a semi-professional basis. Today he still, when time permits, plays in a Cirsa inspired amateur team. He says: "The legs might be older and a little slower but the brain is better. Today, I have learned to conserve my energy on the pitch but I still get the same thrill when the ball goes from my foot into the back of the net!" Not for nothing is Unidesa Gaming's latest hit game, Golden Goal, football themed. "Football is something that is known everywhere in the world and we find it easy to talk about Golden Goal because the theme is something that we all enjoy and our customers readily accept."
For a football fan there is the constant need to see the next big game, or at least to get the results as soon as the final whistle is blown. That doesn't alter, wherever in the world you happen to be. So Angel, suffering the ravages of jetlag, watched the final of the 2000 European Championship in the early hours of the morning in Sydney, Australia. The victory by France, thanks to a Golden Goal, was followed seconds later by a telephone text message from Unidesa's sales director Regis Launay a Frenchman, naturally. Finding a suitable satellite transmission to see live coverage of Real Madrid's Champion's League semi-final in Atlantic City wasn't easy but Angel managed it. He is a self confessed football addict, a dedicated family man and a workaholic. His 'two Fs' are what makes him tick and what help fire the drive and energy that have made Unidesa such a powerful force in the global casino business
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