Bocca: what were the reasons Martino gave Riquelme to refuse the offer to be the new DT

Thursday morning was not what was expected in the world of the mouth. This is the call of Gerard Martino on the phone from a member of the Football Council it was to hear what they didn’t want: that the coach appreciated the opportunity but that this was not the time to take over Boca. Who analyzed it in detail, who was too tempted, but this time he observed the landscape from the outside and, contrary to what he had decided when he boarded the plane for Barcelona in 2013 -which he later regretted- , opted for the no. .

Football talks to Juan Roman Riquelme They had taken him to a place that had seduced him: managing football, the idea and identity of an Argentine giant. A challenge of those that once brought him to the Argentina national team. The Copa Libertadores also looked favorably on a non-complex draw in the previous analysis. It’s that the everyday is something that (unlike other coaches) was an experience that Martino found rewarding at Atlanta United and also at Newell’s. That’s why he didn’t close the door in a hurry and even closed it with simultaneous messages for all members of his coaching staff. Some have been excited by the possibility and others have put their thumbs down on some of the edges that need to be thought about as quickly as possible when faced with the urgency of a definition.

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It is true that an initial economic proposal was also made during the talks, that there was an hour-long conversation in which Martino heard the club’s idea in the short and medium term, and also for a pass market in June which will see the sale of some surnames. Even the look for Boca Predio in terms of youth promotion.

But for Martino the Boca experience came before taking office: phone calls, messages and even people in Rosario waiting for him on the doorstep. movements of jogging on Oroño avenue and also in the calm of Funes, close to the noise of the city, were impossible for 72 hours.

He had, much faster than any other coach, an express demonstration of what awaited him. What is often complex to explain but which only those who once walked the halls of Brandsen 805 experience. And then Tata stopped the ball. They had nothing to do with their ties to domestic or foreign policy (It was even rumored that the link with Paraguay had intervened) nor suggestions from his coaching staff and not even a question of money. Even his closest entourage, who followed his last months in the Mexican national team with concern, including retinal operations, issued their verdict. His grandchildren Mateo and Bernardo weigh much more today than they did years ago. And for Tata, grateful and honored by the call, the challenge – for the context – was perhaps the most complex to accept.

“The Nanny of 10 years ago probably would have said yes, because the temptation was there. But this time they weighed other issues”they said clarion from your immediate environment. The same one who told him a long time ago to wait for a team from Europe to go abroad. Martino, in fact, had already received polls from Sevilla, Valencia and Leeds United which he had rejected because it was not a proposal to take over the club with a pre-season to play (another voice that he would not have had at Boca, with a suffocating fixture and commitments urgent during the week (including travel to Venezuela) and building from scratch.It was what he was aiming for and it was also something that Riquelme had heard in the first call, the same one in which Tata had also been overbearing: I would not have been able to advance any conversation as long as there was another technician with the job. There was also a big difference: Independiente’s cell phone was cut off before the minute, making it clear that he wasn’t interested in that possibility at all. With Boca it was very different. So much so that some, never in Boca Predio, believed they were certain that Martino already had one foot in the Bombonera de Brandsen 805. He never moved them from Rosario. Tata’s fate, over the months, seems to be far from Argentina. And his last no to Boca, the third in his history as a coach, was what nobody wanted to hear.