Gerardo Martino, the one chosen by Riquelme who has lived them all and who lacks the challenge of directing Boca

This year marks a decade: before and after everything happened. On May 29, 2013, in Rosario, Newell’s de Gerard Martino eliminated by the Libertadores Mouth de Bianchi and reached the semi-finals of the continental tournament after a dramatic penalty which finished 10-9 for the locals. That night, Tata DT embraced Riquelme, a soccer player, two weirdos within the Argentine soccer scene, who might join their paths again at La Bombonera.

At that time Tata was already a coach with the scrolls, mainly due to his work in Paraguay, where he did very well in clubs such as Libertad and Cerro Porteño and reached the national team. With Albirroja he played in the 2010 World Cup, where he put Spain on the ropes who would have crowned champions, and the following year he reached the Copa América final in Argentina, losing against Uruguay.

Much earlier, in 2006, Tata played for the first time at the helm of Boca. The Argentina national team took on Basile and then-president Mauricio Macri did not trust Coco’s assistant, Russian Jorge Ribolzi, and went looking for an experienced coach to lead a team that had just been two-time champions and won the top five dates of the 2006 Apertura, including a historic 7-1 win over San Lorenzo as a visitor. Lavolpe ended up arriving.

“I spoke to a coach on the phone, they offered him to me and I said that at the time I couldn’t because we were in full cup and I had a contract until December. Of course, I was tempted by the possibility of managing Boca, but what was right was what I did, not that I ran after Boca,” Tata later admitted in an interview with The graphics.

But the story of Tata and Boca had other previous chapters, with a bitter taste for those in blue and gold. In 1991 he started the rematch that crowned Newell’s de Bielsa champions in La Boca, on penalties. Shortly after, in 1998, on his first experience off the pitch, he was technical assistant to Carlos Picerni at Platense, who beat Xeneize 4-0, again at Bombonera.

Martino also had to suffer against Xeneize, and not just for a bad result. In the Liguilla 86 final, La Leprosa won 2-0 as visitors with two of his own goals, but lost the second leg at the Colossus 4-1. Both he and Gringo Scoponi were accused of ‘selling out’ for handing the match, a charge he could only overturn after winning three titles and reaching two Libertadores finals with the club of his love but which he has never forgiven.

But going back to 2013 and the embrace between Tata and Román, Leprosy failed to advance in that cup after losing an unusual series against Ronaldinho’s Mineiro, but DT repositioned himself as coach, displaying an attacking and modern football, evolving with the his style the idea of ​​not speculating and defending only when necessary which he incorporated when he was a footballer under the orders of Marcello Bielsa. He was also a student of Jorge “the Indian” SolariIt is worth noting, another historian with a great legacy in Argentine football.

After that spell at Newell’s, he got a chance from Barcelona, ​​advised by a certain Lionel Messi. Owner of a very particular low profile, heedless of conflicts and media exposure, Martino later recognized him His first reaction was to refuse the proposal, but it was his children who convinced him..

On Catalan soil, Tata not only had the challenge of leading one of the best teams in history, the one formed by Guardiola, but he also inherited the “bench” due to the illness of Tito Vilanova (later deceased), Pep’s assistant and protagonist of the most golden stage of the Blaugrana team. He won a Spanish Super Cup, had the best league start in history with 7 consecutive wins and took 18 games to suffer their first defeat, setting a record for foreign managers.

But in terms of titles, the balance ended up being negative: in that first season they lost a Copa del Rey final against Real Madrid, were eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and lost the local championship in the last round against Atlético del Cholo. Simon. In May 2014, despite still having a year left on his contract, Tata announced his departure from a club (and dressing room) that ended up eating him away.

In a career full of twists and turns, fate had an even greater challenge in store for Tata: the Argentina national team. Alejandro Sabella stepped aside after Brazil 2014 and Martino was picked up by Julio Grondona, who died before DT signed his contract. Again, as in Barcelona, ​​​​Gerardo will arrive in the ideal place but at the least opportune moment.

In the midst of the chaos that erupted in the AFA After the Capo’s death, Tata managed to put together a team that played really well, progressed from game to game and lacked just a little luck to win a title after a more than 20-year drought: in 29 matches added 19 wins, seven draws and three losses, but lost the 2015 and 2016 Copa América finals on penalties to Chile. In that last match, Messi missed the penalty and then announced his resignation from the national team .

The prospects were getting darker for the national team but Martino ended up leaving not because of the slaps in the finals but because of the indifference of the AFA and the top management of the Argentine clubs, who decided not to give him players for the 2016 Brazil Olympics Tata has projected a generational change in the national team as necessary and wanted to use that tournament thinking of Russia 2018: time would eventually prove him right.

In July 2016, after a tour of the United States in which he had no players to train with, he got tired and said enough. They also owed him money, though he chose not to mention that detail and quietly walked away.. The national team, the same national team that is at the top of the world today, was left without a president in the AFA, without Messi and without DT.

MLS Atlanta United passed, where they won everything, and then came the Mexican national team, where they won and lost but suffered criticism like no other from the press, especially merciless after the World Cup in Qatar. With a football team no famous people They followed logic: they managed to draw against Poland, lost against Argentina and beat Saudi Arabia, being eliminated on goal difference against the team of Robert Lewandowski, one of the best strikers on the planet.

“I like to be near the road,” Fito Páez, Tata’s schoolmate in Rosario, once sang, a little-known fact. And Martino seems to manage that philosophy of life, he is capable of thinking of saying no to Barcelona out of shyness or of affirming his dignity in the face of his dream job with the Argentina national team. Boca arrives ten years after the embrace with Riquelme: What is coming is not a road, it is a highway.