Victor Sanchez del Amo: La Liga and Champions League winner speaks exclusively to Sky Sports

The first part of our exclusive three-part interview with Victor Sanchez del Amo, where he opens up about growing up in the Real Madrid academy, playing under Fabio Capello and Jupp Heynckes, his stunning successes with Deportivo La Coruna where he won La Liga and the Copa del Rey, as well as scoring a memorable hat-trick in the Galician derby versus Celta Vigo.

Not many people can say they've won La Liga and the Champions League with Real Madrid. Even fewer can say they repeated that league success and then beat Madrid in a Copa del Rey final - Victor Sanchez del Amo is that man, and he judges his successes with Deportivo La Coruna as more impressive than what he achieved in the Spanish capital.

In a team which contained Roy Makaay, Pauleta and Fran, 'Super Depor' (as they were then known) stunned the top division in Spain in 2000, clinching the title by five points ahead of Barcelona and Valencia, and Real Madrid were a lowly fifth.

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Victor admits that the memory gives him goosebumps and that he wanted to, as he puts it, "be part of history with gold letters", and it was certainly a golden era for the Galician side.

Deportivo went on to win the Copa del Rey two years later, lifting it at the Estadio Bernabeu on Madrid's 100th anniversary. They also competed well in the Champions League, reaching the semi-finals in 2003-04 when they beat Juventus and AC Milan, until falling to eventual winners, Jose Mourinho's Porto, in the last four. It was some seven-season stint in the north west of Spain.

Victor's career had started in the Madrid academy, playing alongside Guti in the U12s, before the latter's growth spurt. "Everyone remembers Guti as tall, strong, with a good fitness condition, but at 11 years old, he had problems playing with the other players of the same age because he was very weak," Victor recalls.

Not that it affected his professional career unduly - Guti won five La Liga titles, four Spanish Supercopas, three Champions Leagues, two Intercontinental Cups and a UEFA Super Cup in 15 years at the Bernabeu. Sometimes size isn't everything.

In terms of his coaches while with Real, Victor describes Fabio Capello as a father figure, tough and serious like a "sergeant", and that even though the players complained a lot, no one ever wanted to see him leave.

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Jupp Heynckes, meanwhile, was a gentler figure, interested in the players' lives outside the football pitch, excelling in human relationships, and both of them have shaped Victor's development as a coach.

Already his career in management has taken him back to his beloved Depor for the last eight games of the 2014-15 campaign and the entirety of the following season, and then to Real Betis, where he helped save the club from relegation after the ill-fated spell of Gus Poyet at the Estadio Benito Villamarin.

And these are points he discusses in part two of this exclusive interview next week...